Worst/most memorable fall

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northmanlogging

northmanlogging

The gyppo's gyppo
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I mean the trips and klutz moves shere you yourself ate dirt like the pro you are.

Yesterday, while not my worst fall, walking a fat fir log back to make literally the final buck of this project, some bark or loose ivy came loose, tipping my 330# carcass forward about 45deg, way past sustainable, i of course do my best to right myself, mostly just gaining speed and delaying the inevitable, where upon i chuck muh saw loose muh tin hat and still manage to land face first in the last grassy spot to be found. No injuries, and sadly no vijeo...

Worst injury fall (at least logging) was once again walking logs with some sketchy caulks on slipped and landed arse first after bouncing off the log, tweeked my back pretty bad on that one.

Scariest fall, rappelling down a tree i had topped, and my figure 8 device was rigged wrong or something, dropped a good 40' before letting go of the prusik back up, 5' from tera firma
 
I was bucking a fairly good size blowdown oak off the rootball on a very muddy and steep slope about 30-40 feet above a river. That part went fine, the tree rolled down the slope into the river, big splash. I was sitting down slope of the rootball maybe 20 minutes later drinking water. 7 or 8 people had gathered there when the rootball let go and rolled down the slope and right over the top of me. It probably weighed a ton and believe me it squashed me flat. It put my face on the ground between my knees hard. And in less than a second it was gone and making its own big splash in the river. Everyone including my son Cody thought I was hurt bad and of course I was a long way from a paved road and no helispot in sight. But... I wasn't hurt a bit (once I spit the dirt out). My only regret was nobody filmed it.

Then there was that time where I cut down a 9 1/2' diameter redwood stub about 60' tall. Lots of wedging to make it fall, more wedging than cutting. It took an hour but once again, no problem. As we walked out I saw the redwood had knocked over another redwood maybe 100' tall and 2' diameter. A little further on that redwood knocked over another redwood maybe 50' tall. That redwood hung up in a bigger redwood but knocked a branch out on the far side. That branch landed 30' away... on the side of my truck! My first insurance claim in 20 years.
 
Oops I forgot to mention one other tale I've already told here. I received a pair of WESCO caulks I bought on ebay. Of course I wanted to check the fit so I went hiking in my back yard. Well duh! I stepped on an extension cord running to the chicken coop. You guessed it, 120 volts in my right foot. At first I didn't know what happened. Did a nail poke through the sole? No nails don't make my heart race. I will always remember this stupid stunt.
 
2dogs said:
I was bucking a fairly good size blowdown oak off the rootball on a very muddy and steep slope about 30-40 feet above a river. That part went fine, the tree rolled down the slope into the river, big splash. I was sitting down slope of the rootball maybe 20 minutes later drinking water. 7 or 8 people had gathered there when the rootball let go and rolled down the slope and right over the top of me. It probably weighed a ton and believe me it squashed me flat. It put my face on the ground between my knees hard. And in less than a second it was gone and making its own big splash in the river. Everyone including my son Cody thought I was hurt bad and of course I was a long way from a paved road and no helispot in sight. But... I wasn't hurt a bit (once I spit the dirt out). My only regret was nobody filmed it.

Then there was that time where I cut down a 9 1/2' diameter redwood stub about 60' tall. Lots of wedging to make it fall, more wedging than cutting. It took an hour but once again, no problem. As we walked out I saw the redwood had knocked over another redwood maybe 100' tall and 2' diameter. A little further on that redwood knocked over another redwood maybe 50' tall. That redwood hung up in a bigger redwood but knocked a branch out on the far side. That branch landed 30' away... on the side of my truck! My first insurance claim in 20 years.
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I was crossing my strip [lots of fell and bucked] with a set of Silvey tree savers strapped to my back. It was Spring and the bark was slipping, I slipped on a piece of loose bark and went over backwards between two logs and was stuck. The straps on the jacks were holding me down and I could not get any slack to get loose from them. I finally hollered up my partner and when he quit laughing he helped me escape.
 
fool skip said:
I was crossing my strip [lots of fell and bucked] with a set of Silvey tree savers strapped to my back. It was Spring and the bark was slipping, I slipped on a piece of loose bark and went over backwards between two logs and was stuck. The straps on the jacks were holding me down and I could not get any slack to get loose from them. I finally hollered up my partner and when he quit laughing he helped me escape.
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A friend of mine fell out of a van that was sitting on a bit of a hill one morning.

As his feet touched the ice, they went out from under him towards the uphill side: he was then face down.

As he fell by the sliding door, he must have bumped it enough that gravity took over & it rolled to a close when he hit the ground. With his coat hood securely pinched between the door & the pillar the door latched too.

The van driver had to get out & Help my friend up because the coat being zipped up, & him being face first on the frozen ground prevented him from being able to free himself.

I wasn’t even in the same time zone when this occurred, but I got a 1st, 2nd, & 3rd hand account when I arrived.
 
Didn't feel like standing in 4ft of snow, so was pissing while standing on the 648 skidder. One foot in the cab, one on the front tire, back against the doorframe. Not exactly comfortable, but better than in sniw up to my waist.

Well... the steering valve leaks, and the floor and my boots get oily. Also add in some sawdust and water from melted snow.
The foot in the cab slipped a few inches while mid piss, went to catch myself, foot on tire slipped too.

Ended up slamming my side into the tire chains, doing some gymnastic type split with my foot still in the cab as I'm on my way ~6ft to the ground.

Ended up face first right into my pee. Luckily some thorny pucker brush broke my fall.
Tore up my hands a bit, ripped skin off mybshin (through long johns, heans and carhardt bibs!) bruised my right side on the chains otherwise ok. Sure hurt the next morning.

Next time I got off the skidder!
 
Year or two ago, was gwtting ready to head home, let the dog loose to go fire off an Obama.

Well he wandered off. I was walking around the property looking for him and ended up walking onto a sheet of metal roofing someone had left on the ground.. on a sloped section of the property. 3" of snow over it, plus it was dark.

Feet kicked out, and I landed square on my back with roofing screws poking me.
Blew the wind out of me HARD.

Well I'm laying there trying to breathe and swearing at the lazy idiot who left the booby trap and next thing I know my dog is trying to lick the mouth and nose off my face haha!
 
My first year in the woods, 1994 I think, I was working for Weyco doing some reprod survey stuff. It was a 5-year old plantation as I recall, and since the trees were above competing vegetation, they'd stopped spraying it, and the blackberry had taken over the understory completely. I quickly discovered that there was no good way to move through that garbage, and no real way to see the ground reliably. Unless I wanted to cut trails (which I did plenty of), the best way to move around was to jump from stump to stump, and rely on my calks to catch me. I did this for several weeks without incident until one day I fell through what I thought was a stump but was in fact a pile of old slash, which did not support my weight, and as I crashed down all of the stabby bits jabbed me in the guts. I just knew when I looked down I was gonna see blood but somehow I got lucky. Hurt like hell, and it took awhlie to break free. After that I got in the habit of reaching forward and tapping the stumps with my plot pole before jumping onto them. It slowed me down a bit, but saved me a lot of pain.
 
Got another one for ya. [I fall down a lot.] I was packing out on day carrying all my crap with my saw on my shoulder. One foot got tangled in some honeysuckle and down I went. One tooth on my saw chain made a nice straight cut right across my throat. Boy did the blood pour. I turned my glove inside out so I would have a fairly clean surface to apply direct pressure. Luckily my partner was waiting at the truck so I didn't have to holler him up. Off to the emergency room for 10 stitches. The nurse was trying to figure out how to hold a gauze pad on the wound and ended up taking a stretchy thing kinda like a women's fishnet nylon. She pulled this down over my head a cut out the face so I could see and sent me out the door. It musta looked pretty strange cause I got a lot of stares from other drivers on my way home. I guess I forgot to tell my wife I stopped off at the Hospital on the way home. She bout passed out when I walked in.
 
Flagging boundaries today with prop owner who is a slight little thing 5' and maybe a buck 20.

Lots of junk everywhere, walkin this big down cotton weed, LO waltzes down a branch to get down, i mention some bs about falling to me death and proceed to follow him.

About the time he says don't worry its strong...

I feel the first crack in my boot...

5' straight down...

Amazingly no real injuries
 
wakeman sound area...i was walking up my walk logs to the always sketchy part of anyone’s trail..slipped and went spread eagle while watching my oil jug slip and slide in to the abyss never to be found..bruised legs and ego while walking back to the crummy for another oil jug..got it right on round 2.
 
This was not a fall, but simple stupidity. About a year ago, I was going to cut a sweetgum tree down that was near a powerline. I went to remove a limb on one side, to get the weight off of that side so it would fall the other way. I didn't notice that the limb had fallen against the top and bottom lines, with the butt of the limb down against the base of the tree. When I went to notch the tree on the other side, it would be a flash and a big "woof" sound every few seconds, and I initially thought the saw was acting-up as the flash seemed to be coming from the muffler area(front of saw). Then I noticed it. The limb was "charging" the base of the tree on one side, and sending the power up in the tree on the other side. I guess I was very lucky. Knocked-out power to the neighborhood until the power folks came and scolded me, fixing the problem. Was I embarrassed? HELL yeah! That was my biggest "Duhhh" moment(I hope)...LOL
 
Ocean Beach in San Diego celebrates X-mas each year by a local resident donating an ideal size conifer, usually a Norfolk Island Pine, to The OB Christmas Tree Club.

My job was to crane it down n lay it onto a forty foot semi trailer, secure it, then stay with it, with a police escort down to the beach, making sure it cleared stop lights n low hanging wire drops usin polesaw extension n hot sticks.

Once at the beach we have to pick it up n stuff it in a concrete storm hole ten feet deep and 30 inch diameter metal ring inset.

Naturally there's a huge crowd, local news cameras n radio station personalities, all applauding my aerial dexterity and crane expertise, as I shed my saddle and stepped off the sidewalk in my Wesco's, onto indentation between asphalt n concrete, bending my ankle out enough that I had to go down n roll or break my ankle, cameras rolling along with me.

One of the radio dudes was kind enuff to laugh along with me and good naturedly tell the audience I was safer in the air than on the ground, as he helped me up!

https://oceanbeachsandiego.com/media/photos/ob-christmas-tree-2007

Jomoco
 
Those are some great stories, but why let the truth get in the way of a good story?
Just yesterday I dumped a dead spruce about 13" dbh.
Anyway, the tree hit the top of a fence post so squarely and perfect and bounced right off.
There's not too many fence posts here in the Yukon.
I'm cutting firewood lately, so I took a wage cut, but life is good.
How have you woodticks been doing lately?
 
I was drilling the face of the 2nd shot in a quarry. The first shot really backbroke the face and left a hell of a toe so I was standing about 2’ off the face changing steel when it gave way. I fell 15’ landing flat on my back in the snow and boulder pile below. I lay there for about 15 minutes catching my breath, waiting for the pain. Got lucky and just bruised the crap out of myself.

Second fall wasn’t so lucky. I was on the back of the drill fueling, went to step down to the tracks and my fat foot snagged a hydraulic hose and my big a$) Fell onto the edge of the tool box on my service truck then face planted into the dirt. Couldn’t even jump up to make sure no one saw, I couldn’t breath. Broke three ribs on my right side, still have a dandy scar from that one.
 
jomoco said:
Ocean Beach in San Diego celebrates X-mas each year by a local resident donating an ideal size conifer, usually a Norfolk Island Pine, to The OB Christmas Tree Club.

My job was to crane it down n lay it onto a forty foot semi trailer, secure it, then stay with it, with a police escort down to the beach, making sure it cleared stop lights n low hanging wire drops usin polesaw extension n hot sticks.

Once at the beach we have to pick it up n stuff it in a concrete storm hole ten feet deep and 30 inch diameter metal ring inset.

Naturally there's a huge crowd, local news cameras n radio station personalities, all applauding my aerial dexterity and crane expertise, as I shed my saddle and stepped off the sidewalk in my Wesco's, onto indentation between asphalt n concrete, bending my ankle out enough that I had to go down n roll or break my ankle, cameras rolling along with me.

One of the radio dudes was kind enuff to laugh along with me and good naturedly tell the audience I was safer in the air than on the ground, as he helped me up!

https://oceanbeachsandiego.com/media/photos/ob-christmas-tree-2007

Jomoco
Click to expand...
I spent that Christmas in Escondido, my son was living there at the time. It was weird riding around in his Jeep with the top down in a t- shirt at 10:00 at night.
 
A little different situation here.

After a cafe breakfast I arrived just before daylight where I'd be cutting, and needed to take a crap. I scraped a little hole in the duff with my boot, squatted, and did my business. Then I scraped some duff over the mess and squashed it down with my boot so as not to leave a land mine for anyone.

A few minutes later, as light was coming into the world, I realized my vision was dim. Well, just need to dig my glasses out of my shirt pocket . . . only they're not there. Where the hell are my glasses?

Had to dig them out of that mess and find water nearby to clean them up. And then straighten the frame.
 

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