co worker cut his wrist with 201T

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Safety is in the attitude, those who think safe have good common sense and training will be safer than a untrained hack. However we all been in those situations that after hindsight knew could of been prevented. Most of the regulations are designed to protect the big companies from negligence which is why they make you sign the tailgate safety meetings! That way they have proof you were informed in the event of accident. The good thing is the training after a few years will make new employees somewhat safer, because education verses trial and error can make difference between life and death. In this accident I'm glad the fellow came out ok and likely he knew after the fact a rope would of prevented it from coming back and may do so in future cuts. Awareness of task and hazards is paramount to safe job sites, unfortunately though you can teach ppe,methods and techniques some things must come through experience and even if you can recite anzi word for word it wont help in some instances. Example arrive at jobsite take out approved fuel mat fill saws with approved ridiculous safety can, put on chaps and all ppe and start toward work, dead 8 " limb snaps and falls on you, how is that a preventable accident? Some accidents could only be prevented by staying home but knowing that does not give anyone excuse to lax on safe operations, it just confirms all cannot be covered and we are in inherently dangerous occupation. Also many times safety such as ppe is more stressed than preventative measures for dealing with hazards and has always seem counter productive toward safe job sites imo.
 
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The Stihl 201T, Product Recalls by stihl

Product Recalls by stihl, STIHL MS 201 T chain saw, you can go to your dealer and they will take care of it for free. and that baby will scream again. to 14,000 rpm like the ms 200. just to lets you know.
 
Product Recalls by stihl, STIHL MS 201 T chain saw, you can go to your dealer and they will take care of it for free. and that baby will scream again. to 14,000 rpm like the ms 200. just to lets you know.

What is the recall for?? Stihl has nothing on their site about a 201T recall.
 
The saw only rev at 10 500 Due to a misprogramation in one of the sensor or something like that, that there is a total of 2,500,000 unit recall i will copy and paste the article , if you did buy the saw in the first 6 months when they came out with the new line of saw the dealers as to fix it at no fee. Stihl fix the problem after 4 months of production

The recall was for all product made in the first 4 months of the new line,

Oct 14, 2011 – Product Recalls · Special Shipping Instructions. VIRGINIA BEACH , VA – The STIHL MS 201 T
 
yesterday one of my fellow co workers was removing a big maple with the bucket truck. he was taking the top out and while doing his back cut it came back on him so he raised both his arms to stop it from landing on him and did the chainsaw charlie across his wrist. he lowered himself low enough that another guy could control the bucket. he passed out so we called 911. 3 animal like gashes and only 15 stitches somehow. it looked pretty painful you could see his muscles. back to work today. lucky lucky lucky.

Wow, sounds scary! Was it in that high wind we had Jeremy? I always put a pull rope in the top of the tree when topping (if its a big top) in the bucket or climbing. Hope h recovers quickly
 
No this was last week he was in the bucket. I was removing an ash yesterday in the bucket with that wind. After every cut the branch would go horizontal then had to throw it into the wind, needless to say there was some fence jumping to get a couple that the wind beat me. My first removal in the wind. Makes it hard to cut when the branch is moving a foot back and forth! He's alright. Workin with him in the bucket truck right now. it wasn't that big of a top but I guess the wind did push it back. I'm sure he's learned something from it.
 
No this was last week he was in the bucket. I was removing an ash yesterday in the bucket with that wind. After every cut the branch would go horizontal then had to throw it into the wind, needless to say there was some fence jumping to get a couple that the wind beat me. My first removal in the wind. Makes it hard to cut when the branch is moving a foot back and forth! He's alright. Workin with him in the bucket truck right now. it wasn't that big of a top but I guess the wind did push it back. I'm sure he's learned something from it.

Cool Jeremy, at least it wasn't a big top and wiped him out and the bucket! I sent you a text also, got some work tomorrow if your interested!
 
No this was last week he was in the bucket. I was removing an ash yesterday in the bucket with that wind. After every cut the branch would go horizontal then had to throw it into the wind, needless to say there was some fence jumping to get a couple that the wind beat me. My first removal in the wind. Makes it hard to cut when the branch is moving a foot back and forth! He's alright. Workin with him in the bucket truck right now. it wasn't that big of a top but I guess the wind did push it back. I'm sure he's learned something from it.

He probably learned to put a pull line on it next time its windy.
 
Sounds like he MAY have just made a bad cut... maybe he over cut the hinge, or made the back cut too high or bypassed the cuts on the face, causing the hinge to seize, until it failed. ALL SPECULATION of course, but it happens all the time, even to really good climbers.. Sound falling technique goes a long way to getting the job done fast AND SAFE in a bucket or climbing.. I've seen a lot of really good climbers and highly experienced riggers make some really bad cuts year after year....

Glad he's OK... Have you done a safety meeting to determine why the top went the wrong way?
 
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After the safety meeting you need to have a bad karma meeting with you him the chainsaw and a sledge hammer , I feel once a chainsaw tastes blood its now a maneater and can't be trusted , CALL ME CRAZY but I am not even joking the least bit
 
I have a completely different guess as to why it went the wrong way. The only time I ever had trouble controlling a branch from a bucket truck was when I was at the limit of the buckets reach, and I was stretching the limits to get the job done quickly.

This was a big maple, as stated in the OP, and you can bet he would have gone higher and cut smaller if he could. He probably reached up and cut as high as he could, leaving no room for a rope to do any good. Next time, tell him to take a pole extension and a hook and set a line high enough to pull the branch over safely. Other options include using a pole pruner to take weight off one side first, or just piecing it out higher than the bucket can reach.

This is just my guess though...
 
I haven't posted on this thread in a long time, I find it frustrating to try and guess why something happened. I have mentioned, in the past, that I really don't see any less "accidents" now than I did 30 years ago. I am 100% sold on head protection. I grew up watching guys free climb to the tops of trees and never tying in untill they got to the top. Limb walking, every day. Maybe one reason you hear of more accidents now than way back, is there are so many more tree companies out there. When I was a kid there were only about a dozen tree Co in the the yellow pages, Wash DC Metro area, and 5 or 6 of them were relatives. They all fit on one page. Now there are pages of tree experts. Every Co has a couple rookies. So many more people and chances to get hurt. Back then every climber had a bunch of bad azz scars. I think most came from hanging pole saws above their heads, and having them get knocked off the twig, and raking them as they went by. I'm sure I hear of accidents that are caused by rookies that think if they wear every piece of ppe made they can't get hurt. The one accident that we seldom heard of was someone dying in a chipper accident. Now it's quite frequent. When I met my wife she said my back looked like I was a slave on a Roman Galley, whipped into working. Good old 16" chuck and duck. Usually when I read this thread the responses are similar, the guy was inexperienced, he was a rooky, he was a hack, and for about 50% of the accidents that's true. In most dangerous industries, most accidents are to people with less than 2 years experience, and people with over 20. There seems to be a group in the middle that seldom get hurt. We used to say the ones that were "too dumb" to know better (newbies), and "too smart" to know better (know it all pros).

I think that we've put too much time into "making" people wear ppe and not enough time into "making" them work safe. You can tell a rooky to look up a million times, but it is un-natural act for a person to walk around looking up. It hurts your neck, you can't see your feet. But if you don't look up, you won't see the widow maker hanging there, creating the need for your hard hat. It's hard to teach a rooky to move quickly under a tree. It's hard to teach him to keep the work area clean. If you keep the work area clean you don't have to look down at your feet as much, because there is nothing there to trip on, so you can look up more. Then you have climbers who want to put every thing on the ground as fast as they can so they can take a smoke break while the groundies clean up.

My Dad was one of the safest workers, and safety method trainers, I've ever known. Yet, he had a bad 25 to 30 foot fall, that put him in the hospital for a month. It was back when braided rope was first being used. We still used 3 strand twisted New England safety rope. We had a climber that would meet us at the job site. He was a "no show". Dad showed up in his Cadilac, running estimates, with none of his own gear. We had our climbers gear on the truck, so Dad said he needed a little exercise, and grabbed the other guys gear. Dad's number one rule was "NEVER USE SOMEONE ELSES GEAR". He broke his own rule. After his fall we inspected the braided rope our climber used and found several spots where the inner core had been severed. The climber had a bad habbit of chunking down trees and dropping the blocks on his rope. We figured he must of had the rope laying across a root or something and dropped a block on it, severing the core. That's one reason I NEVER let someone else do up my climbing line. If they do I stretch it back out and rewrap it. I want to run every inch between my fingers as I do it up.

For the record, this little rant has absolutely nothing to do with the OP'er. Since it was a minor injury with no loss of life or limb, I used it as a forum to preach safety as a lifestyle, not a piece of equipment. And, if safety is a lifestyle with you, you'll use the safety equipment. Not the other way around. Do you get my Drift? Thanks, Joe.
 

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