How many of you have had chainsaw accidents?

LOL

Had a severe tree hung up a few weeks ago that required attaching my Subaru via chain and several running starts. Yesterday I realized that there were a few decent dead branches still hung up in adjacent trees- Yikes!

I don't process a huge amounts of wood, but I don't see how people have a few/several accidents in a season. I get sloppier later in the day so I take regular breaks (like after each tank of gas- go get some water, sit down, collect myself).

First line of defense is always thinking before you do something. PPE is important, but second at best. I'm becoming a firm believer that regular breaks are probably saving me blood (quick touch up on the chain, get water ad a snack, sit with the dogs).

That's one of my cardinal rules when cutting wood: don't work tired or pissed off. The other one is: stop immediately if you dull the chain and either quit or sharpen it.

You guys are pretty funny. Reading your posts puts a big groin on my face.

Reminds me of a certain John Waters movie.

I nicked my knee couple butterfly band aids. Then the wife bought me some chaps. I wasn't even cutting wood I was clearing small 1" brush for my buddy for shooting lanes for deer stand. But as Eric said don't cut tired I had just got home from driving around 12 hours and he had to get it done now.

And some kind of hardhat with face and hearing protection. Protecting your hearing is easy and critical. Also, on the boots, spend a little extra for logging boots that have protective kevlar across the ankle. There are plenty of places online to get everything you need, including:

http://www.labonville.com/

http://www.baileysonline.com/

http://www.gksales.net/

And others.

Here's something that's happened a couple of times that you might not consider. After I'm all done cutting I've had wood chips and sawdust fall out of my hair into my eye, so now I try to remember to really brush out my hair and wipe my forehead after cutting.

burntime said:

Agreed Eric, when I am cutting the wife keeps the kids in the back yard or in the house. The lab also stays back from training, but darned if she does not run up everytime I shut the saw off. When I reach for hit she runs 20 feet and sits and waits again!

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My lab does the same thing. He will sit and watch from 20-30 feet away when I'm cutting. As soon as I shut off the saw its time for him to run over and help me clear brush, or should I say make more of a mess for me to clean up! When I'm dropping a tree he gets tied up to the truck.

No chainsaw damage for me but I do seem to get a nice little gash on the arm every now and then loading the wood. I agree with the no cutting once you get tired and the stopping for a rest and sharpening quite often.

No "medical attention needed" level injuries, but have had an assortment of minor cuts and burns from grabbing hot bits, or catching on briars and the like... Closest to a major was right after I got my fancy Matterhorn chainsaw boots - thanks to the advice of others on the board...

Trouble is, compared to the non-steel toed shoes I'd been wearing, the Matterhorns are like "Bozo feet" clown boots - feels like your feet are a couple inches bigger all around - and I misjudged my clearances, although I had no business cutting that close to my foot anyway. However I'm not at all sure I'd have gotten myself in my regular foot gear as I was stopping the cut as I made contact... However regardless I'm glad I was wearing the Matterhorns...

However I covered the cut bit on the toe with a thick layer of shoe goop, and did the other boot to match (without the cut...) so they are pretty much good as new. (there was no damage to the kevlar padding, or even the inner leather layer)

Minor note - I agree with Eric's recomendation for chainsaw boots rather than plain steel toes - according to some of the OSHA stuff on chainsaw related injuries, a significant number of them are to the top or side of the foot, where the steel toe won't do anything. The Matterhorn boots are much more expensive than some of the other brands, but IMHO they are worth it - I've never had a pair of boots that was as comfortable, and the Matterhorns offer more layers of Kevlar, a higher top, Gore-tex lining, puncture proof sole, and so forth which I think makes them a more effective peice of safety gear. The other boots are listed as meeting the OSHA specs, but the Matterhorns are also UL listed, AFAIK they are the only brand that is...

Gooserider

I've been told that if you want to have a cold, numb foot for the rest of your life, cut the nerves and tendons across the top of your foot at the ankle. That's why the kevlar is such an important addition to a conventional steel-toed boot or shoe.

No injury, but the first time I nicked my jeans while cutting, I stopped, and didn't again use the chainsaw until I got the protective leg chaps; now use full leg coverings. Also added helmet with ear protectors and face guard. A branch fell on my helmeted head while cutting - came from a different tree. No injury. I'm exceptionally careful, at least as careful as can be with a very dangerous tool.

jebatty said:

No injury, but the first time I nicked my jeans while cutting, I stopped, and didn't again use the chainsaw until I got the protective leg chaps; now use full leg coverings.

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I had the same experience, and like wise, got a pair of chaps ASAP.

This is a fairly disturbing thread - lots of injuries. As someone who has only been doing this 3-4 years, I'd be interested in what aspects of cutting technique / position led to these "nicks" and injuries so we can avoid them.

Personally, I wear chaps, helmet with screen and hearing protection, and leather boots - not steel toed, which I probably should.

I try to get all my cuts lined up so that I'm putting the saw to my right, top hand fully behind the safety stop and aim for no body part inline with the chain/bar. I have a hard time seeing how people cut their knees, feet, etc. if you cut in this stance, which is why I'm curious what went wrong for those injuries.

The time I get most concerned is making a horizontal cut or diagonal in a standing tree, as this requires repositioning the saw such that I'm more exposed to kickback, but as soon as the tree is down, I go back to a stance with the saw well to my right. Are most of these injuries coming during felling cuts or other non-standard cuts?

Any lessons learned would be appreciated.

-Colin

(btw, I am now using a Dolmar PS-5100S - finally upgraded from my Homelite a year or so ago)

NY Soapstone said:

This is a fairly disturbing thread - lots of injuries. As someone who has only been doing this 3-4 years, I'd be interested in what aspects of cutting technique / position led to these "nicks" and injuries so we can avoid them.
<snip>

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You are doing things right in terms of what you describe for technique, purely from a safety standpoint. However I would suspect that at times doing stuff purely the "safe" way can cut into your ability to get production done, especially in the fairly random environment of a woodlot where every cut is slightly different. This leads to corner cutting in order to get the work out, or to deal with less than textbook situations.

However I think the key things are more basic...

1. Don't cut when over-tired, emotionally upset, or otherwise not able to focus on what you are doing

2. Don't mix booze with your chainsaw (The bar oil makes the booze taste funny.... %-P ) Ditto other drugs - prescribed or recreational...

3. THINK - for each cut plan what will happen when you reach the end of the cut, how the wood will move, etc.

4. Wear the gear - ALL of it! (See earlier comments about getting CHAINSAW boots, not just steel toes or "logging" boots)

5. Know your own limits, and that of your equipment, and stay within them.

Gooserider

And don't try to rush. Take a little time and keep all the body parts you were born with.

Time is money (but time is not digits/limbs/units of blood, etc.).

I guess what I'm getting at is I'd feel better if all of these accidents started with "well, I was doing XYZ which is clearly not a great idea, but I learned my lesson..." - because then we'd at least say "OK, well I know I will not do that." There are so many stories of problems here that I wonder how many people just had bad luck and despite reasonable precautions/procedures, still got hurt. That is a scarier proposition.

I think commenting on root cause of the accidents would be good to make sure none of us do the same without knowing any better, or can at least be aware of what kinds of things we should avoid.

-Colin

Hi Guys,

This is a good topic. You are absolutely encouraging me to not take chainsaws lightly.

When I was little my father took a blade in the bicep. My mother freaked out and drove us to the hospital screaming about how he was holding his arm on. It definitely made me fear the chain saw. I think he was just cutting up a brush pile.

Ironically, a year earlier, I spent a week in the hospital from wood stove heated water. I ran into my father's back. We got to "heal together" which was strangely comforting.

-John

waivej said:

Hi Guys,

This is a good topic. You are absolutely encouraging me to not take chainsaws lightly.
<snip>
-John

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Well while it's important not to take a chainsaw lightly, as it IS possibly the most dangerous handheld power tool in existence, there does need to be a distinction drawn between "healthy respect" and "mind numbing fear" - an excellent reason to take a chainsaw course (something I haven't done, but want to - just a question of finding one at the right time / place...)

I would say 90 - 99% of accident free chainsaw use is a question of operating properly and following proper procedures... If you do things right to begin with you will avoid most of the scary situations. I would say that MOST accidents are direct results of carelessness, failure to follow good procedures, or whatever else you want to put under that big umbrella known as "operator error"

However there is also an element of luck involved - we don't have Superman style X-ray vision to spot the chunk of metal in the middle of the log, or that the tree is more rotten in the middle than we expected, or all the other myriad things that can go wrong when working on a product that by it's nature tends to be variable and unpredictable... Sometimes chit happens, and a scary thing will occur when we least expected it - following proper procedures will help keep it in the range of "scary" and not "bloody", but sometimes that isn't enough - and this is when the gear comes into play...

My OOPS above was an operator error. I shouldn't have been cutting that close to my foot, but I got careless and in a hurry to finish that last cut on a log - I was working with the tip (not good, but very commonly done) and the log kept rolling - so naturally I put a foot on it to hold it down, and didn't stop to think about my other foot being in line with the cut...

I've had other times where stuff hasn't gone quite the way I was expecting it to, but because I had allowed for the possibility and set up to handle it, no problem...

Gooserider