Coalition to prevent Wood Chipper Injuries and Fatalities

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jomoco

Tree Freak
Joined
Oct 4, 2006
Messages
16,184
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Location
San Diego CA
Greetings fellow arborists,

A little background on me, I'm a 33 year veteran of the tree industry, most of it as a demolition climber. I gained a very small amount of fame back in 1992 when I invented the leather Cambium Saver and Helen Stone put me on the cover of the June issue of Arbor Age magazine.

As a long time tree veteran, I have a very real respect for how dangerous wood chippers can be, particularly lately, as they are more powerful and more capable of taking very large wood.

In 1995, I filed for and was granted a US patent on a wood chipper safety device that I called a chipper safety gate ( US Patent# 5667152 ). The device was relatively simple, it consisted of a closed loop metal detector mounted in the feed shoot of a chipper, that wood detect when the metal strips encapsulated in the gloves, hard hat and boots of the chipper operator, came into it's field, triggering either the reversal of the feed wheels,
( hydraulicly fed chipper ) or activate a safety barrier to close just in front of the cutting mandrel ( old drum style chippers ).

It seemed to me that this new invention had two very important advantages over the existing safety features at that time. First and most important, it would prevent a disabled or unconscious chipper operator from being dragged into the machine, if he or she was properly equiped. Second, it would prevent foreign metallic objects from being inadvertently fed through the machine and doing damage to the machine or it's operator.

I was very excited and hopeful that my new invention would be well received by the chipper companies and promptly incorporated into their new models.
However I was shocked to learn that they wanted nothing to do with my new invention, and refused to tell me why. It took me many months to find the real reason for their refusal to adopt my invention for use.

LIABILITY, when a person is injured or killed in a chipper accident, the manufacturer faces only a limited liability, and if it can be determined that the safety systems were not maintained in good working order, or that the operator was negligent somehow, they face no liability at all. If they were to incorporate a modern safety device like mine into their machines, and it failed for any reason in an accident, their liability is large, perhaps even complete.
It all boils down to money, making it a thorny issue indeed.

It was my opinion then, and still is now, that it will take who knows how many injuries and fatalities to occur working with wood chippers, before a court of law determines that these companies have purposely ignored available technology, quite capable of preventing the majority of these tragic injuries and deaths. These companies will have to learn the hard way that effective safety controls on their equipment, is in their own best interest, and that ignoring these unnecessary deaths will one day put them out of business, while more enlightened companies fill their shoes.

Each time a tree worker is eaten alive by one of these supposedly modern wood chippers, I receive calls from lawyers, state and federal officials asking me why my system is not in use? I tell them the same story that I'm telling you in this post.

I urge all tree industry professionals to write or e-mail the TCIA or the ISA
and let them know that it's high time these companies that manufacture wood chippers see the light and get with the program!

And by the way, in 1998 I let all the major chipper manufacturing companies in the US know that my patent was available to them free of charge if they would just use the technology in their chipper models, once again they turned me down.

I have allowed the patent to expire, and am hopeful that a manufacturer somewhere in the world is willing to put lives above money.

Sincerely,

jomoco
[email protected]
 
I respect your intention to prevent injury and death, but I feel that we have gone far enough now. People just need proper training to run a chipper, if they get chipped after that, oh well. Where does it stop? Treework is an inherently dangerous job, running a chipper safely is a no-brainer if you follow the instructions. Fellow do-gooders are trying to get top handled saws banned in Europe now because people use them with one hand, good God, imagine that. I never came up with this quote, someone else did, but it is good "If you make something idiot proof, they just invent a better idiot"
 
clearance said:
I respect your intention to prevent injury and death, but I feel that we have gone far enough now. People just need proper training to run a chipper, if they get chipped after that, oh well. Where does it stop? Treework is an inherently dangerous job, running a chipper safely is a no-brainer if you follow the instructions. Fellow do-gooders are trying to get top handled saws banned in Europe now because people use them with one hand, good God, imagine that. I never came up with this quote, someone else did, but it is good "If you make something idiot proof, they just invent a better idiot"

But that was why I bought one! I only cut one handed to the side, to increase my reach, never in front of me (I like all my body parts).
 
clearance said:
I respect your intention to prevent injury and death, but I feel that we have gone far enough now. People just need proper training to run a chipper, if they get chipped after that, oh well. Where does it stop? Treework is an inherently dangerous job, running a chipper safely is a no-brainer if you follow the instructions. Fellow do-gooders are trying to get top handled saws banned in Europe now because people use them with one hand, good God, imagine that. I never came up with this quote, someone else did, but it is good "If you make something idiot proof, they just invent a better idiot"


Hey there clearance,

I appreciate your position on saws, but even chain saws have improved and are now safer as a result of the manufacturer trying to prevent serious injuries. The chain brake is an excellent example. How many injuries occured before a manufacturer decided it was a good idea to include a chain brake into their product line to try and prevent serious injuries to both home owners and seasoned professionals? And as a result of the chain brake's effectiveness at reducing injuries, it has now become an accepted and appreciated industry standard. I seriously doubt that you could manufacture and sell a saw that didn't have a chain brake today.

The bottom line is that we are all human, and some times we make mistakes regardless of the amount of training we've had. As a professional industry we do every thing we can to improve training proceedures and make the equipment that we use as safe as possible. It is the companies that are constantly on the look out for better training methods and improved safety equipment, that will succeed and lead the way into the future.

Accepting the status quo is not the attitude that produced seat belts, airbags or chain brakes, and these forward thinking products have made life better for thousands of people world wide.

So here's to the future, working together intelligently, I'm confident we can make it better and brighter.

jomoco
 
Mike Maas said:
If it were a valid idea, wouldn't you make it an after-market add on for chippers? The answer is that it would be expensive and nobody would buy them. Most peoples perception is that it's always the other guy who does things wrong.
If you do decide to go into selling after-market add on of this idea, you might want to put metal in the guy's boots too!

Do you kick loose "fuzz" lying in the chute into the blades? You could use a stick. Might want to have your guys have metal in their butt's, too---I almost chipped a guy butt first when he was directing me back with a chipper on a skidder, years ago for a company that never trained or used safety gear. After that, no one turned their back on a chipper, but we still didn't bother shutin' 'em down when moving around the lot.
 
There was a time before airbags, seatbelts and even padded dashboards to save lives/ injuries; driving was inherently dangerous and you had to accept that. Car manufactureres had to be pushed, prodded and commanded the whole way to do better for all; that these level of risks that could be solved were not acceptable.
 
I can see why the manufacturers would be like that. Seems like the more you try to help people the more you give them to sue you for. If you warn them against doing a particular action in your training manual, then you're admitting that you knew that your equipment was dangerous. The legal system makes it very hard for us to help people be safer nowadays.

Still, I'm suprised that they're taking this stance. A safety device for a life threatening risk seems like a worthwile investment to me. If we manufactured chippers and really thought that your device would work I think we would make it standard on all of our equipment, with the warning that the device had to be properly maintained and tested for proper function on a regular basis, and that it is only there to help you, not to make you completely safe.
 
Well guys, I was quite shocked and pleased this morning to get a call from one of the bigger chipper manufacturing companies in the US. He was a senior engineer that remembered me and my efforts in 1998. It seems that they are now atleast willing to explore the possibility of of prototyping a unit with my system and testing it.

This is good news, and I wish to thank any of you that took a few minutes to e-mail your support on this issue to TCIA or the ISA, I also thank the good folks at TCIA and the officials at the NIOSH FACE progrgram.

It may not seem like much, but it's a start, and as we all know, good things take time.

Thanks,

jomoco
 
a device such as this could have very well saved a friend of mine, consumed by a cardboard shredder.
he was experienced with the machine, and would often comment that ANYONE could go out back and feed this monster... pleaded with management to require training....
alas, wasn't ANYONE that got it, it was Dave, in a momentary lapse of reason.
 
machine was similar to this image i googled, somewhat larger, however...

attachment.php
 
jomoco said:
The device was relatively simple, it consisted of a closed loop metal detector mounted in the feed shoot of a chipper, that wood detect when the metal strips encapsulated in the gloves, hard hat and boots of the chipper operator, came into it's field, triggering either the reversal of the feed wheels,

Is this similar to the foil "antenna" like sticker we have on merchandise these days for anti shoplifting?

The little foil coil goes through the metal detector that is tuned for it and sets off an alarm.

I could see how off the shelf tech amy be able to make it cost effective.
 
what a wonderful idea! a fail safe device not controlled by operator.

I've seen too many operators feed shredder like it was nothing. getting hands within inches of feed teeth.

operators using their foot to push in debris, instead of finding a stick to push in. a good way to get dragged in shredder

jomoco said:
Well guys, I was quite shocked and pleased this morning to get a call from one of the bigger chipper manufacturing companies in the US. He was a senior engineer that remembered me and my efforts in 1998. It seems that they are now atleast willing to explore the possibility of of prototyping a unit with my system and testing it.

This is good news, and I wish to thank any of you that took a few minutes to e-mail your support on this issue to TCIA or the ISA, I also thank the good folks at TCIA and the officials at the NIOSH FACE progrgram.

It may not seem like much, but it's a start, and as we all know, good things take time.

Thanks,

jomoco
 
This is an EXCELLENT idea, well done.

someone commented that its simply a matter of training people right....well yes and NO.

- you can train someone all you want, but they can still get pulled into a chipper via a broken branch snagging thier clothing.

- you can train someone all you want, but they can still be pulled into a chipper via operator error (rushed, not paying attention, tire, under the influence of booze whatever...watching the skirts walk by, a sudden diversion of their attention(climber yelling, groundie yelling etc), boss yelling at them to do something

- you can train someone all you want, but they can still get pulled into a chipper via slipping on the ground and landign into the chute, then getting pulled by the wood, an errant rope snagged in the branches, pushing debris with hands and not a stick, a tree limb bucking sideways or up, knocking the operator out and then said operator falls into chute.....

- you can train someone all you want IN ANY SAFETY PROCEDURE, on any jobsite or career, but ultimately the "human error" factor will always creep in and cause accidents. Hence a PERFECT reason for such a device like MOJOCO's on a chipper .

keep us informed Jomoco, maybe try to present this to the local safety boards (the ones paying out the insurance money....) (here in BC, Canada we have the Workers Compensation Board, now call WorkSafe BC)
 
Thanks for the replies guys,

To answer John Paul's question, no, while radio frequency tag detection technology is extemely similar to mine, it is not the same.

However radio frequency tag technology may indeed be the best choice for use in the chipper safety field, not because it is better, but rather that it's cheaper to implement. In fact if you go to the USPTO website and punch in patent #6418004, you'll find that a patent was issued to a fellow from Australia named Corey Mather that uses radio frequency tags in 1999, two years after mine issued in 1997. Indeed his patent was issued with a reference to mine. Further more, his technology has been prototyped and tested with what appears to be very promising results.

I'm fairly sure that mathers technology could be substantially cheaper to produce than mine, because in 98 just the metal detection unit that was capable of reliable detection in my application had a cost of over 7K.

The one thing that Mathers and I have in common is that neither of us have as yet had our technology adopted for use by any of the major chipper manufacturers. I am still hopeful however that things will change, and regardless of which technology is used, his, mine or some one else's, the most important thing is that it is one capable of keeping a disabled or unconscious chipper operator out of the machine.

It is quite obvious to me that only by working together with other concerned tree professionals in the industry, will we be able to achieve a higher degree of safety in the future.

Thanks and best regards,

jomoco
 
LightningLoader said:
I can see why the manufacturers would be like that. Seems like the more you try to help people the more you give them to sue you for.

We just need to get rid of the ambulance chasers and the manufacturers may fall in line. I personally think the device is a step too far.. I think there should be a lanyard attached to a kill or reverse switch in case you go too far way from side of chipper but that would necessitate at least two people to feed a machine which isn't a bad idea.
I operate a 20" chipper,often by myself, but work with loader and from the side. It's amazing to me that when I have help or get new help that these guys want to stand at the rear of a 6' wide opening and feed crotchy branches.. absolutely amazing even after I 'splain it twice!
 
Have you made a working prototype??? Or do you just have an idea?
 
Yellowdog said:
We just need to get rid of the ambulance chasers and the manufacturers may fall in line. I personally think the device is a step too far.. I think there should be a lanyard attached to a kill or reverse switch in case you go too far way from side of chipper but that would necessitate at least two people to feed a machine which isn't a bad idea.
I operate a 20" chipper,often by myself, but work with loader and from the side. It's amazing to me that when I have help or get new help that these guys want to stand at the rear of a 6' wide opening and feed crotchy branches.. absolutely amazing even after I 'splain it twice!

Maybe you can get them to work harder---then they naturally will toss from the side. If you approach the chipper with an armload of brush on your shoulder (and that also keeps it out of the mud), ideally you throw it into the blades while turning and dodgeing to the side, so that the ends don't whip you on the ear (to quote Austin Powers:"That really hurts"). The slow guys drag a few branches to the chute, drop them there, and feed them one at a time. It's hard on the back to lean over from the side, pick them up, and throw them in, so they are gonna poke them in standing behind the chute.

Just some memories from when I fed the chipper. Of course, you can take it too far--the boss would get really pissed when we burned the belts up after jamming the blades a couple of times.
 
New member here but been lurking on the site for awhile. Sorry to resurrect an old thread but I see that Morbark has something called ChipSafe available. It looks very much like your idea has come to fruition. I am just a homeowner and don't know how well the system actually works but seems like a great idea.
 
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