Man cutting limb from tree injured

Jeff Darby

Man cutting limb from tree injured - MassLive.com



Never use ladders while doing tree work, but time and time again we hear of stories like this...a couple of dollars saved is not worth your life.

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© Jeffrey J Darby 2011

dov

Ladders are at least 10 times more dangerous than the average tree.

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KevinE

I had an unbelievable experience today as I was taking down a tree in a backyard at Hillcrest; the tree was too big for the yard & had grown through the washing line & over 2 neighbours fences. My customer advised all parties that I'd be there today. JSA done on arrival, no issues. Anyway, I'd been working about 15 minutes cutting the lower limbs out of my way with my top handled saw & pole sawing my way up the tree & as I'm cutting a limb overhanging the property next door I suddenly see 2 hands hanging onto the branch I was cutting, about 200mm from the B&C (the fence is high, so I couldn't see anyone approach the tree from that side) Of course, I immediately shut down my polesaw & scurry up said tree to have a look at what's going on. There was an elderly Indian gent hanging onto the branch & smiling up at me! I guess my adrenalin was pumping because I yelled at him to move away, but there was a language barrier & I don't think he liked being yelled at lol! It took a bloody long time for me & my customer to get it through to him using sign language that he was very lucky he still hand hands at the end of his arms. Looking back, I think that he believed he was helping me.

Sorry for the long winded post, but it scared the crap out of me & I guess I needed to vent!

redmower

Know the feeling Kevin. Freaks me out too when someone else does something on my work site that I have not anticipated.

A while back i had someone scurry under the cherrypicker while I was undertaking cut and throw of a tallish melaleuca to the client's backyard. I quiclky counted my 3 groundies in different colored shirts as they were faithfully standing in their agreed spots on the footpath in my full view. So WTH was the scurrier?? Turned out it was the client's wife, 65yrs+ racing out and back from the verandah to catch pics of the tree being pruned.

Afterwards, while enjoying a cuppa with the clients we discussed the job and the very windy day, certain safety issues, and the difficulty in re-organising the tree work after the good wife changing her mind in the midst of the original job a week earlier. Finally the good man asked me how I would plan for a job like this: I answered by suggesting that next time he could take the good lady out to lunch and maybe a movie while we did our stuff.... Thankfully she laughed as well as he did, and I learnt extra things that day.

Cam

KevinE

G'day Cam, I know what you mean, I had one of those last week. Not nearly as dangerous as yours sounds, but kept me on my toes lol! I'm cutting down a reasonably large Italian Cyprus & become aware that there is someone buzzing around me. Same thing! she was taking photos. She wasn't in my work area, but I wasn't expecting her to be anywhere near me & I had no idea what she would do next. More importantly, she had no idea where I was intending to drop chunks of the tree as I cut it!