Hi Folks...how was Gooserider injured? Did a tree fall on him...or a widow maker come down from above and catch him? The reason I ask is there may be a lesson here that we all might learn something from. Franklin
Injured
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Oldmainer said:
We are waiting to find out. He typed out a long explanation a couple of days ago but the post got trashed by his machine before he could submit it. Hopefully he will be up to redoing it soon.
Goose explained it to me when I called him a while back . . . but it's not my place to tell his story . . . I do hope he tells the tale though since quite honestly . . . after hearing it . . . we're lucky to still have Goose with us.
A tree did fall on him. I'll let him fill in the details of the story, but I think he was in a very thick woods and various trees were tangled up with others - apparently, the escape path was laid out wrong or not large enough.
Lat week, my 72 year old neighbor told my wife he was going to remove a large branch which had fell and had one end hung up in a tree. She suggested that I grab my Stihl and go cut it for him, which I did. It only weighed about 1,000 lbs, but I feel certain (he is all thumbs!) that he could have hurt himself trying to do that!
Back in NJ, there was a news story years ago in my little town - a weekend warrior had cut down a very large tree in his yard - and dropped it on his 2 year old kid - killing him!
Moral of story - you can never be too careful.
Lat week, my 72 year old neighbor told my wife he was going to remove a large branch which had fell and had one end hung up in a tree. She suggested that I grab my Stihl and go cut it for him, which I did. It only weighed about 1,000 lbs, but I feel certain (he is all thumbs!) that he could have hurt himself trying to do that!
Back in NJ, there was a news story years ago in my little town - a weekend warrior had cut down a very large tree in his yard - and dropped it on his 2 year old kid - killing him!
Moral of story - you can never be too careful.
Webmaster said:
I always get asked to cut down trees for others and thats ok I really dont mind . I so often get asked how can you do that drop that right where you want it to go . I probably alot of times spend more time preping to cut a tree down than the actual cutting takes . All I can say is becarfull and study all the things that could go wrong and plan your escape accordingly .
Webie
I'm wondering what went wrong too. I figure he'll tell us when he is ready. I'm sure it is not one of his better memories. What ever did happen we all know that it was a life changing event for him and his family and we all have to keep in mind that chainsaws, trees and all the other stuff we mess with can be lethal even if we do take all the precautions. Be safe out there folks.
I was telling a friend that is a landscaper about this on Saturday. She does some general yard cleanup on top of the normal stuff and so runs a saw and splitter. It really made me stop and think about it. When I have a day to work, I bust ass for many hours- at the end of the day I'm not nearly as careful or calculated as I should be. I'm sure that everyone does about the same sort of thing.
Well as a start... There was a big wind storm that caused a large pine to drop a major branch in the park across the road from our house. It broke the top out of a large oak, and caused it to fall over and get hung in a second oak, along with a lot of other damage to other trees. I was assured by several neighbors (and my own observations that the town would be most unlikely to object to a volunteer cleaning up their park at zero cost to the taxpayer, especially if it included removing a seriously nasty widowmaker snag, and as long as one was discrete about it and didn't take stuff that wasn't legitimately dead or dieing, etc.
After looking at the snag for several hours from all sorts of angles, (while cleaning up a lot of the other damage and removing all that fallen down oak...) I came up with a plan of how to put a rope on the tree and winch it over from a distance after making the three appropriate felling cuts. Per the plan this would drag the top out of the second oak, (hopefully saving it) and drop the topped trunk and the chunk of pine branch lodged in it, in a safe direction for further cleanup...
I called Tim, and we proceded per plan, which went extremely well, we got the rope into the tree, cleared what I thought was a more than adequate escape route, and set everything up to make the drop. I made the notch cut, and the felling cut, stopping as soon as the tree started to shift, shut the saw off and retreated down the planned route. Tim started cranking on the tree and had gotten it over at least 5-6 feet when the snag pulled out of the second tree as planned.
This is when things started to not go quite right... (to be continued, it's bed time)
Gooserider
After looking at the snag for several hours from all sorts of angles, (while cleaning up a lot of the other damage and removing all that fallen down oak...) I came up with a plan of how to put a rope on the tree and winch it over from a distance after making the three appropriate felling cuts. Per the plan this would drag the top out of the second oak, (hopefully saving it) and drop the topped trunk and the chunk of pine branch lodged in it, in a safe direction for further cleanup...
I called Tim, and we proceded per plan, which went extremely well, we got the rope into the tree, cleared what I thought was a more than adequate escape route, and set everything up to make the drop. I made the notch cut, and the felling cut, stopping as soon as the tree started to shift, shut the saw off and retreated down the planned route. Tim started cranking on the tree and had gotten it over at least 5-6 feet when the snag pulled out of the second tree as planned.
This is when things started to not go quite right... (to be continued, it's bed time)
Gooserider
Man. A cliffhanger.
Lowell. Used to live there for a couple years back in the early 80s.
Is this one of those experiences where your brain replays it all day and you wince as though it was happening all over again? I hate that.
Lowell. Used to live there for a couple years back in the early 80s.
Is this one of those experiences where your brain replays it all day and you wince as though it was happening all over again? I hate that.
REF1 said:
I was thinking the same thing, about replaying the incident over again. All I can say is I have complete respect for the guys that do this sort of stuff for a living, dropping trees and limbs. I am one of the cheapest, tightest scrooges around, but just the other day signed a contract for $580 to have two small trees dropped and to prune a bunch of other tree limbs.
Those men earn every penny and then some for what they do - and even with all their training the professional tree service I use had a death a couple years ago. Something went wrong with his tree climbing harness and a worker fell. The owner told me it was a seasoned pro with over 30 years in the industry. Once again, I really respect the guys in that line of work for what they do, they make it look easy but it's just not.
billb3 said:
I think so, but she wasn't there and didn't actually see it happen... As a result her version was very short... However, continuing from the previous,
As the tree winched over, the top part of the snag pulled out of the second tree it was snagged in, as I was pretty much expecting - since the distance between the two trees was increasing, either the snag had to pull out, or it had to break off at the trunk where it had already been knocked over. When it pulled out of the second tree, it swung down at the point where the tree broke until the top branches started to hit the ground and that part of the tree was basically bent double with respect to the main trunk. This was still pretty much what I was expecting.
The snag then broke away from the main trunk, which wasn't a big surprise, as sticks have a tendency to snap when bent double, even if they are 6-8" diameter trunks...
What WAS a surprise was that the broken snag trunk followed me right down the escape path, which I hadn't made quite long enough (or gone down far enough) and hit me... Not quite sure of the details but I think it was the last few feet of the main snag trunk that got me, probably on my right shoulder (now separated) knocking me down, and as I went down, breaking several ribs (I've never been told how many) on my right side, and breaking my left tibia (The forward bone on the lower leg).
I tried to push the tree off me, didn't get anywhere, and realized that the leg was broken (I could feel it move in a place that was NOT my knee...) Tim saw that I was hit, and ran over (through the danger zone he realized afterwards) and got the tree off me, and we confirmed that I wasn't going anywhere under my own steam. He then got Mary-Anne, and called 911.
The paramedics came and did a good job of stabilizing me and getting me out of the woods, then made the decision to carry me off to Lahee (SP) Hospital in Woburn - a place with the reputation of being one of the better trauma centers in the country. This was a good thing, as it seems quite possible that another hospital might not have been able to save me....
More later...
Gooserider
Thanks for sharing your expererince. Very glad that Tim was there and that you were not cutting out by yourself.
Adios Pantalones said:
Can't agree with you more. I used to cut at my MIL's house by myself....had a few close calls with some leaners/hangers, and realize that I shouldn't even have tackled some of the cuts on my own....I don't have the expertise nor experience to do that sort of work, and I learned a lot from this post and website.
If I cut anything nowadays, it will be with a partner and log length, on the ground.
Again Goose, thanks for sharing.
Goose, that simply must have been pure Hell for you and probably still is. I only hope you come out of this much better than what has been predicted. Hold in there man!
Goose is living the nightmare I imagine every time I drop a tree. And missed realizing by a foot fifteen years ago. There are two eighty foot leaners on this place that have been hung up there for five years and they can just stay there.
BrotherBart said:
I've never experienced a wood related injury, but I have experienced major injuries & pain in my life. I really feel for Goose! I do endurance off road dirt biking on very narrow trails and believe me every ride there’s that nightmare vision of wading into a tree at speed
I pray for goose and my self!
Glad to hear your getting better Goose. A few years back my brother in law and his brother were harvesting wood, soemthing they've done together for 30 years and a tree he was cutting down hit a dead standing tree and then deflected over and hit his tractor crushing the tractor and my BIL's brother. Sad way to go and he was very experienced.
70marlin said:BrotherBart said:
I've never experienced a wood related injury, but I have experienced major injuries & pain in my life. I really feel for Goose! I do endurance off road dirt biking on very narrow trails and believe me every ride there’s that nightmare vision of wading into a tree at speed
Years ago I lost a couple friends. One was getting ready to unload logs and when he released the chains the logs came down, crushing him. For those who wonder, no, there were no stakes on the truck. It was a straight truck and he loaded the same way as we did. Stakes just at the bottom of the load with the load triangled.
The one that really was something was a fellow I was very close to and was the best man I ever saw with a chain saw and he was also a good sawyer at the mill. I recall one time when work was a bit slack and he and I went to doing some tree trimming. He climbed trees like a monkey and was strong as an ox. He always amazed me with his work. However, he also had a tendency to do silly things just for kicks. Like one time he was injured really bad. He and another guy were throwing axes and seeing how close they could come to each other without touching. Each guy against a log and about 18 feet apart. The other guy lost. Trouble was, by winning, my friend also had a terrible injury on his leg. Yes, stupid! But some people are like that. I've always wondered if it was something like this that killed him. He was trimming trees again and evidently he was on the ground and a limb came down on him hitting him in the head. It was quick.
Fortunately I've got my jollies from doing things not quite so dangerous.
My dad always on my butt about sawing and this thread reminds me why.... I have change my felling it takes longer but a lot safer.
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