Personal story of a friend's serious felling accident (IL, about '99)

[Oldtimer]

Bear in mind that most of the deaths from tree felling occur within 10' of the stump. Trunks kicking back or getting wrenched in odd directions when the crown tangles on the way down can make for unpredictable movement in the butt. The best thing to do is to make a hasty retreat from the vicinity of the stump without ever turning your back on the tree.

From my own experience felling in the dense virginia woods I can say that it is very difficult to fully clear the lay for the crown when you are selective harvesting and that often results in crazy swings, kick back (from the tree) - I choose to clear 2 escape paths and use one of them the instant I see the tree start to go.

Same here. I was referring to a tree doing a completely unexpected movement and running in terror. I usually move 8-10 feet off to the safest side and watch carefully, looking up too. Death from above is the danger after the tree is in a committed fall.

 

[Positrack]

All good points, and I appreciate all the input and constructive criticism. It is true that other than the tree falling badly, the main cause of this was simply panic. When the tree started over in my buddy's direction, he didn't evaluate the situation, he just reacted instinctively (RUN!). He could have easily out run the tree if he had gone sideways, but that's easy for me to say standing a hundred yards up the ravine watching him. Still, it was so frustrating because I could see exactly what was going to happen but I couldn't do a thing about it. He knows and readily admits he just panicked and if he had just thought about it for a split second before reacting, the outcome could have been much different. It reminds me of when people lock their brakes on snow. It's not gonna help one bit if you need to steer around something, but it sure can be hard to force yourself not to do it in an emergency. Live and learn I guess (if you're lucky).

He could have set a sprinting world record though if somebody had been there with a stopwatch. He's a pretty husky fella (lineman in HS) and usually has only two gears: low and double low, but he was wide open in overdrive that day!

 

[RVALUE]

All good points, and I appreciate all the input and constructive criticism. It is true that other than the tree falling badly, the main cause of this was simply panic. When the tree started over in my buddy's direction, he didn't evaluate the situation, he just reacted instinctively (RUN!). He could have easily out run the tree if he had gone sideways, but that's easy for me to say standing a hundred yards up the ravine watching him. Still, it was so frustrating because I could see exactly what was going to happen but I couldn't do a thing about it. He knows and readily admits he just panicked and if he had just thought about it for a split second before reacting, the outcome could have been much different. It reminds me of when people lock their brakes on snow. It's not gonna help one bit if you need to steer around something, but it sure can be hard to force yourself not to do it in an emergency. Live and learn I guess (if you're lucky).

He could have set a sprinting world record though if somebody had been there with a stopwatch. He's a pretty husky fella (lineman in HS) and usually has only two gears: low and double low, but he was wide open in overdrive that day!

I have found that there are two types of people. Those prone to panic, and those who tend to not panic. Lots of mishaps happen when a person panics.

 

[B-Edwards]

A former foreman of mine got the same kind of hit. He had just cut a rock hard dead oak and it lodged in another tree. The other climber and myself were standing back as he was chunking it from the bottom. We both saw that he was making a mistake but he was the foreman and it was too late. As he made the last cut and pushed the bottom of the tree knuckled back and it began to fall and he was running directly in the path. It hit him square on top of the head driving him to the ground. The only thing I think that saved him was some large rock 2-3 feet tall caught the tree so it didnt follow him all the way to the ground. He was wearing a hard hat but it still hit him hard enough to split his head. He works for the power company now and seems to be doing fine but told me he has nerve damage. We picked on him and ask if he tried to stay in the shadow while he was running. Unreal how easy you can die doing this work. Even if you are experienced. He had been doing tree work for years and was good at . Seems everyone is capable of being stupid now and then or just making a simple but costly mistake.

 

[Metals406]

A friend of mine, Sam, almost died last Saturday. He's an experienced woodsman, but that only takes you so far.

He was a million miles from nowhere cutting cord-wood with a buddy. They were looking for pumpkins, and found a nice 2.5 cord DF. The fir was on the cut-slope side of the road (uphill), and several hundred yards from the road.

Sam was standing on the road (well clear of the falling tree) while his buddy dropped it. The fir came down, and made a run (this is line-ground steep). Before Sam could react to the direction of the fir, it slammed into the road several feet beside him.

A 40' chunk of the top flew up and hit him dead square in the forehead. It threw him over the fill-slope side down into a creek bottom (50'-60' away from where he was initially standing). His buddy witnessed the ordeal and ran down to the road.

The tree had to get cut out of the road to get to help, so that took his friend a few minutes; Sam still lying unconscious in the creek bottom. Sam's friend jumped in the truck to move it closer to where Sam had been thrown. He looked over on the seat and saw Sam laying there. Somehow he had made his way to the truck while the tree was being cut out of the road.

It was 20 miles to the nearest phone, and another 45 miles to the nearest hospital. Sam went in and out of consciousness until they reach the Inn where a Life-Flight was called in.

Sam is lucky. . . He received a nasty gash on his forehead, 27 hairline fractures of his skull (think Humpty-Dumpty), but no swelling, bleeding, or the like. He was released from the hospital the following day. He's supposed to take it easy for the next 2 months while the bone tries to join again.

How he didn't have more serious head trauma (yeah, like 27 fractures isn't enough) I'll never know. He was being watched after from above is all I can think?

His son goes to kindergarten with my youngest boy. . . I'm glad Sam's son still has a dad.

Be safe!

 

[outofmytree]

Give my regards to Sam. Glad he made it out of there alive.

 

[Metals406]

Give my regards to Sam. Glad he made it out of there alive.

 

[silverzuk]

I have had vines really mess things up. I was young and also facing a steep learning curve.
One tree was in a tangle of vines. I had cut smaller trees to pull the vines down the hill, which will pull on the bigger tree. The smaller trees (4" to 6") were cut clean and leaning with the vines keeping them from falling.
I had cut loose all I could on the up hill side so the vines wouldn't drag anything down on top of me.
The tree had a good lean down hill, and I was confident I had done enough to make it go.

I cut it loose, and it started to go. The first indicator was that I had to cut through most of the hinge before it started to go. I stepped back and was watching. The tree started to go, and as the vines tightened in a tree top across the hill, I figured it would pull through.

I was wrong, the tree spun, pulled off the stump, and sent the butt flying back toward me. As it went by I pushed off and jumped into a hole (which I was standing beside for that reason).

The tree I cut was suspended by the vines in the top of another tree. It fell over enough to break the hinge and jump it back beside the stump. When every thing settled, the end of the tree was about 15' uphill and behind the stump it just came from.

That one really opened my eyes about vines. Particularly the strength of a bunch of little ones about as big around as your finger.