One handing MS 200 = deep cut

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tree pro

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A guy I know, ISA certified, 12 year exp. excellent tree man, injured himself on Wednesday in Denver. He was grabbing a limb with one hand and cutting it with the other. While reaching over the bar of his saw, the tip came into contact with the trunk, kicked back a little, caught his sweater, ran up his forearm, and left a 3" deep, 7" long trench in his forearm.

After Surgery, repaired one tendon and muscle tissue. It appears as though it missed nerves, so recovery looks good.

OUCH!
 
He makes us one handers look bad.

Never reach over the bar, when in doubt use a sling! They are handy and cheap insurance!

Good luck to a speedy recovery!
 
Lumberjack said:
He makes us one handers look bad.

Never reach over the bar, when in doubt use a sling! They are handy and cheap insurance!

Excellent advice. That is what I always do! I see a lot of climbers reach over the bar, pretty scary to me.
 
Why one hand a saw anyways, seems to me you are asking for trouble, I dont know anybody who can stop a kick back with one hand.

Hope the healing goes well..................... :blob2:
 
In many cases, one handing is the only option. If so, just use caution and never reach over the bar. Hell, I couldn't do half the work if I didn't one-hand.
 
Cut with your left hand, chuck with your right. Now all the safety freaks are going to say "now look what happened". Had a talk with the guys about lowering wood (blocks, logs) out of the same tree you are tied into. We all one hand saws, bad, but we think that rigging of wood from the tree you are in is just retarded. Some people that never one hand do this stuff, can't figure that out.
 
mikey100b said:
I dont know anybody who can stop a kick back with one hand.

That is a true statement, however kickback will never occur if the tip of the bar does not hit another object. I have never had a kickback occur in over 20 years of using a chainsaw. I do know of people who had one occur (no injuries, thankfully) in the first week of using one (which is the most dangerous time, still learning). Avoiding kickback is easy, just watch where the tip of your bar is and where it is going at all times.
 
My onehanding event was my 5th year. Haven't repeated that mistake since, but have had it kick out of a stump, with both hands and get my chaps on time and kicked out when the log that was behind the one I was cutting touched the tip, did not have a tight grip with left hand, but did get it between the saw and me and only got a couple of knicks on the back of left hand, through my glove. Since then, I have never had a person show me a limb I could not cut with two hands on saw, if it was big enough to need a power saw, above about 3".
 
chipper said:
In many cases, one handing is the only option. If so, just use caution and never reach over the bar. Hell, I couldn't do half the work if I didn't one-hand.

I would say, in a few cases, most times a quick reposition will put you in the right spot to use both hands.

Clearance, your opinion of rigging off the spar is probably due to not having friction breaks available to you so the load can run and have the force disapate. I block out big wood on a regular basis.
 
Rigging off the tree you're tied in to is most of the time the ONLY option with pines and poplars.
 
Clearance, Sure is hard rigging out of the other trees when they are all 300feet away. You have your experience-just remember that it is limited. :eek:
 
Guys, myself and others I know with many more years of removal experience have never lowered logs out of any tree we were tied in. If there is room we fall the logs onto the lawn or we push blocks onto the lawn. As for divots in the lawn, we are not landscapers, the owner fixes that. It is sadly true that an I.S.A. expert and author of a book on rigging died using his own tecniques to lower a log out of a pine tree. There are just to many variables to account for, the tree is not a steel spar tower, you really can't tell if it will take the shock or load. I have fallen 20ft logs 3ft thick out of trees, and the shock that comes up from the ground tells me I am doing whats best for me.
 
Boy, where did the ISA wrong you? Can you ever make a statement without beating up on the ISA?

The dismissive tone of your comment about my dear friend Pete is disrespectful. There were mistakes made that day. Learn from that. No one knows all of the details but we know the results.

It sounds like you've never made a mistake or had an accident. Ever had an accident on your crew? Has your crew made a mistake? Put the stones down since no one lives in a glass house.

It sounds like you can smash and bash the landscape. Most jobs won't allow that. Our clients don't allow us to wreck their homes. Since you work for the utility you have a barrier between what you do and the consumer.

Rigging off the tree that the climber is tied into is a perfectly acceptable practice. Like John said, using rigging tools allows the load to be lowered carefully and controlled.
 
clearance, when doing real tree work people call us because they DON'T want to have to fix divots in the lawn. (Not to mention sprinkler systems, septic tanks, etc...) What about trees overhanging houses? Just bomb chunks and let the carpenter fix them? :rolleyes:
 
Running a saw one handed is a high exposure practice. It is also often the only option, care should always be excercised, and probably numbers would say that eventually you will get cut after x times one handing. Tom, there is nothing wrong with beating up on the ISA, even more so because they have a man of you stature in the tre care community to stick up for them like some kind of Praetorien guard. Maybe some guys the only theing they get out of their yearly dues is the right to voice their perception of the organization they pay their hard earned moneyu to. :umpkin:
 
clearance said:
Guys, myself and others I know with many more years of removal experience have never lowered logs out of any tree we were tied in. If there is room we fall the logs onto the lawn or we push blocks onto the lawn. As for divots in the lawn, we are not landscapers, the owner fixes that. It is sadly true that an I.S.A. expert and author of a book on rigging died using his own techniques to lower a log out of a pine tree. There are just to many variables to account for, the tree is not a steel spar tower, you really can't tell if it will take the shock or load. I have fallen 20ft logs 3ft thick out of trees, and the shock that comes up from the ground tells me I am doing whats best for me.
You make an excellent point.
Every aspect of tree work has risk, and we need to evaluate every technique we use and determine if the benefit outweighs the risk. When it does not, we need to use a different method.
For me, knowing that injuries to the hands, arms and shoulders from one handing, are so high and the benefits are so low, I try to make an effort to simply keep both hands on the saw when cutting.
There are times when it's hard (I'm too lazy) to reposition, or production calls for one hand use of the saw, but they have become less and less frequent as I gain experience.
As other older climbers will tell you, cuts are not the only injuries you will encounter from one handing. Many climbing carriers have ended from CTS, wrist, elbow and shoulder injuries.
I've been a long time advocate of rear handled saw use for climbers. Once you minimize one handed sawing, the advantages of top handled saws is gone. You've all seen the new Stihl 200 and Husky 336, which are now sporting rear handles for climbing. One of the large line companies is switching over for these safety reasons. The rear handle encourages you to work with two hands, which makes the climber feel slow and awkward at first, but like any other new technique he becomes good at it, and like it or not is safer.
As for bombing big wood on to the tree your tied into, I agree it has huge potential for danger. That risk can be reduced by pulley placement and redundancy, proper lowering techniques, minimizing load size, and among other things, careful tree inspection. By all means, use a separate rigging point when you can.

P_woozel said:
Running a saw one handed is a high exposure practice. It is also often the only option...

I disagree. It is often the easiest option, but I would argue that it is not the only option.
We all have cameras, someone post a picture of a situation where one handed saw use is the only option. Even a drawing would help me understand, (we all have Paint on our computers).
 
Mike, I should ahve said it is the nly option for many people. You are correct most times if not all body position can be changed to allow two handed operation. But one should never ignore that one handing is done frequently, and I think often without an understanding of what will go wrong if unaware. :umpkin:
 

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