Chaps while cutting

DUMF said:

4. OSHA stats : 80% of chainsaw accidents are to the left thigh ( where the femoral artery lies ).

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interesting statistic. Would that be because most injuries are during the felling process with the saw horizontal about thigh high, or what? I don't do as much felling of standing trees as a lot of you, and often I wish I had better training for it, so I only do smaller trees with an easy fall and escape path. Maybe I should get one of my logger friends to show me a few things, but then I may get even more dangerous lol.

Before I was much aware of chaps, I always wore my old steel toe wildland boots, though, because I always felt my lower leg and feet were vulnerable when bucking.

You guys have reminded me to always lock the brake while walking. I always keep the bar sheathed when not running too, like a knife. In FF training for wildland stuff, we always used to teach how to walk with your tool (shovel, Pulaski. etc) with the edges out and to the side. That kind of thing becomes habit. I still do that working around the place. So I always walk with the bar behind me. I was never a sawyer, though.

D8Chumley said:

Lots of good info here, thanks for sharing your stories. I don't have any, I guess that's a good thing. Even more of a reason to wear them 100%

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No bad stories is a very good thing indeed. But it can lead to complacency. Not saying for you necessarily, but it can... I've seen complacency hurt people in other high risk situations. I'm confident that I'm not the only EMT (well, ex-EMT) here that can say that.

D8Chumley said:

I took my sons Impreza to my buddies house today to check a CEL light that's on- he's a Subaru mechanic. When I got there he had his Echo 310 sitting there and he was cleaning up some dead pines that blew down on his driveway. Chain hanging 3/4" off the bottom of the bar :/ I said he better tighten that up before it bites him. He did, then when he started cutting he was hacking away, no PPE at all, dull chain and smoke rolling off the bar... It was hard to watch. I tried to give him a recommendation or 2. Hope it sticks with him

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Yikes. I smell another x-ray coming...

I wear wear chaps 100% of the time with a standard rear or top handled saw. Sometimes I'll make a quick cut with a pole saw without chaps, but I usually wear them even with that saw.

Wear chaps, helmet with face guard and steel toe boots 96% of the time. Occasionally I'll have a single cut or a saw to tune and I won't wear the chaps, but otherwise, always.

Lot cheaper than stitches, and the chaps save my jeans from oil fling and getting tore up on thorns.

I find the biggest exposure is when I am limbing a tree off. A lot of the cuts are elevated at odd angles, with occasional bar pinches. Bar pinches are probably the worst of the worst, I usually yank on the saw to get the bar loose and when the bar frees up it usually does it suddenly. In general when limbing I want to get it done and its easy to not pay as much attention as I should. If its someone else's property I usually cut down to under 2" so that's a lot of cuts.

D8Chumley said:

I'm trying to envision how one would cut ones leg with a non running chainsaw. I came up with 2 scenarios. Dropped it on his leg or tripped over the bar. Good story, something I wouldn't have thought of- thank you. How exactly did he do it?

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Sorry about the slow reply. I guess it wasn't even that dramatic. He said he went to pick it up while working in shorts and scraped his leg with the chain. Said he didn't think much of it at first but when he looked at it again he realized it was time to head to the hospital. When I considered it, if you have been cutting a bit and have some wood on the ground or are in awkward terrain you can end up in an off balance situation pretty easily and potentially do what he did. It doesn't take much to cut yourself with a good sharp chain, and who here would say they use dull ones?

Sprinter said:

interesting statistic. Would that be because most injuries are during the felling process with the saw horizontal about thigh high, or what? I don't do as much felling of standing trees as a lot of you, and often I wish I had better training for it, so I only do smaller trees with an easy fall and escape path. Maybe I should get one of my logger friends to show me a few things, but then I may get even more dangerous lol.
Before I was much aware of chaps, I always wore my old steel toe wildland boots, though, because I always felt my lower leg and feet were vulnerable when bucking.
You guys have reminded me to always lock the brake while walking.

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Saws are engineered unfortunately for right handed throttle use. So think about the ergonomics of cutting, how the bar/chain moves to the left when in motion. That's where the left thigh is ( in most of us ) . Most of my stupids cutting, WITH CHAPS always, have been slicing the left thigh area of my chaps.
That chain brake with the saw running or not, is on when starting, moving from the front to the rear of felling cuts, or limbing, or carrying. And get rid of that crotch held drop start technique without the brake on. Take a step, "flip" the brake on with your left elbow. Whew......
Steel or armored toed boot are for drops, not for chain cuts, unless you're wearing full kevlar boots.
And many so called pro loggers don't wear PPE.
Just some opinions from past stupid moves.

DUMF said:

And many so called pro loggers don't wear PPE.

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You see that in a lot of professional work. It's easy to get complacent. I once got myself with a 440 volt 3-phase connection to save a couple of minutes. That was 15 years ago, but I sure remember it! It was a hard hit, too.

Thanks for the tips.

I'm a bit late to this party, but I've never worn chaps, ever. I even got a pair free when I bought a saw.. And then sold them. As I've increased my saw collection to the larger CC stuff, I've definitely learned to respect the tool itself, but not enough to worry about my legs apparently. I never used to wear safety glasses when working underneath trucks either. That changed the day after I had to go to the emergency room to have a piece of rust removed from my eye.

Yeah, I'm still a little lax with safety glasses sometimes depending on the job at hand, but it's really careless to be. I do wear eyeglasses, but they're inadequate for flying debris.

Regarding chaps, I'm just an occasional home-owner class of user, but those damned youtube vids convinced me, as well as some local stories. Nobody I know can be perfectly careful 100% of the time including me. Maybe especially me. I've had some awful close calls in my career (now retired and alive somehow).