Falling Palm Tree Kills 4yr. Old| Ekka makes news comment

Knotahippie

Falling palm tree kills boy, 4 - Local News - Cairns, QLD, Australia

How sad and unbelivable.

Wow, I'm startin' to hate palms too. I'd like to see some pics of the root ball/or broken stem...

I feel real bad for the parents.

Sean Freeman

There will be a police(coroner's) inquiry into the causes of the palm failure leading to the death, its possible but unlikely that pics of teh falure site will be in the public domain.

Very tragic, feel for the mum and dad.

Jeff Darby

My condolence goes out to the Family of this little boy...How tragic.

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Eric Frei

Very sad story.

Here's some Channel 10 news footage, I was interviewed by Max Futcher today in Brisbane, the interview was edited down to suit the news report.

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Sean Freeman

Still you got some salient points across Eric well done, sad stuff all round though

Drouin Tree Service

Sad story..

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OutofMytree

Poor little bugger. Wrong place at the wrong time.......

Eric Frei

Here's the Channel 7 footage.

The arborist they spoke to is John Mulholland .... listen to his take on it.

Dont know why you'd be climbing a Travellers Palm to get coconuts.

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newguy18

Man thats sad,i feel for the parents.

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old schooler

Garry Brockley

Thats so sad. my thoughts go to the parents.

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Eric Frei

Couple of pictures of the palm.

As expected the base was mush, rotted out.

Attached Thumbnails

   

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Knotahippie

Not sure about this species, but palm don't regrow from damaged ends.

phill ellison

Very very sad indeed, the poor mum and dad, we all thinking of them here too

willem

Sad story, we had something similiar two years back a four year old girl killed by a big branch of Fagus sylvatica. But I want to believe that our work as tree professionals helped in preventing more of these tragedies.

In the last interview they say a report of an arborist will be made for the coroner. Are you writing that report Ekka??

In your pictures Ekka the building and garden look new. Maybe the tree suffered dammage during construction/landscaping??

TrevMcRev

Newish looking fence post right next to it.....

Wonder if the climber found any coconuts up there

I feel for the dad, imagine seeing your little boy die right next to you....

Tragic.

We dont know the full story yet, but so many tree failures could be prevented if the general public understood that arborists are a profession, and good professionals understand the visual warning signs of defects in trees and can predict likely points of failure.

Regular inspections by arborists of trees large enough to cause harm should be common place.

A bit like getting a building inspection done when you buy, but more like going to the doctor, because trees & their surroundings change.

Whats safe at one point in time may not be in the future.

Eric Frei

Sadly no, but if they paid the accomodation and expenses to Port Douglas I'd do it for an extra days fishing up there!

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StrictlyPalms

Sad indeed.

As for the coconut comments. I work in the television industry and listening to the reporter lends me to believe she was repeating something out of context that the arborist in question said. One thing I've learned is that announcers and newspeople don't understand 99% of what they talk about, they just repeat words in some sort of coherent order.

So, if the arborist was talking off camera to the reporter and said something like "Well, sometimes spikes are used to climb and trim palms. You know the ones that are sometimes also used to retrieve coconuts?" It could easily be rewritten and read by one of the talking heads completely different. And since the other arb wasn't actually the one who said they were climbing for coconuts I would tend to believe it was messed up by the news crew Just my 2 cents (american)

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carson

This is a terrible tragedy! Thank you for the news reports. The travelers palm in question had a lean toward the footpath which can be easily seen from up and down the street on street view - google maps - 8 Owen street - Port Douglas - then scroll to across the road - white van and blue car out the front - Palm in question was next to an Alexander palm and close to the building (in garden to left of timber pillar.) The lean is not so obvious from the direct front on view. It can be seen from further down the street and also the trunk angle can be seen looking closely from the white van/blue car side view of the entrance (timber pillars on footpath)
Obviously this particular travelers palm has been leaning towards footpath for some time. Other questions I hope someone is asking are - New building - appears to be three older palms left. Who decided to leave them - Architect? or did Council not allow them to be removed. Surely an older palm leaning over a high traffic footpath, clearly visible to all (including Council) would be identified as "risky"?????????
(believe it also had Monsterio vine growing up it"s trunk)

Eric Frei

Here's a link it it, for those unaccustomed you can grab the map page with your cursor and move it around.

http://maps.google.com.au/maps?cbp=1,510.4965412338038,,0,-9.9285782488862&cbll=-16.484307,145.465563&ll=-16.484307,145.465563&layer=c
Generally these "palms" are clumping, usually at the base they have suckers.

Judging by the picture no doubt it was rotten at the base and also no suckers (rare). Could be the suckers were cut off for presentation.

The trunk is soft, consistent to a banana bush. The heads are very heavy full of water. They generally never grow straight, always a slight bend like a coconut palm.

Usually the base is a little more bulbous this one appears rather small in dia for the palm to what I usually see.

I have a suspicion that the suckers were trimmed off which could have lead to decay of the stem and some careful soil excavation of the stump area will reveal if roots were cut etc.

There's another low possibility though, lightening strike. However the usual symptom of lightening strike on a palm would have the head die first and the lower stem last.

The roots never failed, the stem broke. Palms rely heavily on water for defence, dry conditions, roots damaged and even possibly some fungal decay pathogen in that garden can weaken them. I'm sure some careful digging around/ air spading will reveal the truth.

The key to us arborists is VTA symptoms, we need to learn from these experiences and know what the signs were so we can detect it in the future. I have had palms fall over, once when we were setting a pull rope in the head to fell it (Alex Palm). They generally have a smaller trunk dia near the head (less water/resources and shows it struggling), more sick looking fronds and larger proportion of dead ones. Tapping the trunk with a mallet it sounds like it's hollow, sometimes the bark/crust of the palm can be easily indented by pressing your thumb in ... in fact some will suck in like a prune or pucker like an 80 year old with their false teeth out.

That particular species is real soft, a right bugger to chip as it blocks the chute. When felling if you cannot go with the lean and the flat part of the head (naturally usually lines up with lean anyway) be very careful, they will bust out on you, even with huge hinge wood which is just mush anyway.

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carson

portdoug2.doc

picture (hopefully)

carson

portdoug1.doc
and another pic

treeseer

This is the story--whacking the suckers is not up to standard care, so the whacker, or the person specifying the work, may be liable.

newguy18

Niether one works.

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old schooler

carson

Images are in a microsoft word doc. Can't work out how to convert to JPEG etc.
They are just screenshots from the google maps streetview. Can anyone open them?

Eric Frei

I can open them, but I cant adjust them as you locked the page.

I can lift them into paint, but get the whole PC screen etc as you have zoomed and adjusted that pic.

Best bet for anyone who cant open them is bypass Bill Gates and his empire, download www: The OpenOffice.org Office Suite Open Office Org, and you'll get the full package of writer, spreadsheets, power points etc and have it all for nothing. It will by defualt open all Microsofts rubbish but give you more options of saving ... for example, I write reports in Open Office Org Writer then export them as PDF's ... all for nicks!

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Don Ross

Added a picture of the lethal tree.

Used google earth & then took a photograph of the screen with my camera.

Attached Thumbnails

 

newguy18

And here it is,the lethal palm.

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old schooler

Debbie

Hi to all in tree world. I am the Auntie of the little boy killed in Port Douglas by a falling palm tree - Owen St Sept 2008. Coronial draft has come back tragic acciident. What can we reccomend be done so no other family ever has to feel the pain we still feel. The report said the palm had been dead for at least 12 months but no one noticed as there ws a healthy vine growing on it. I have been reading comments and it seems some of you may hve suggestions. please help so no one else should ever need to say godbye to a loved one.

debbie

carson

Hi Debbie
We are so sorry for your families loss and as a parent cannot begin to imagine what your family has and is still going through.
Tried to PM you but was unable. Can you PM me or leave some contact details?

Eric Frei

Both Debbie and Carson have full access now.

It's a well known fact that dead palms turn to mush and there's plenty of talk about that here including video I'm sure.

Seems to me then some-one was negligent, an accident is to some degree unforeseen but not noticing or ignoring a dead tree let alone palm is seriously neglectful. Do they have a landscape management plan? If they do then it should have been picked up, if they don't then why not?

Do they have an OHS procedure? Does it include vegetation? If not why not? The location was easily accessible and visible, gardens looked tended and mulched.

Vines up trees are also frowned upon, in my opinion it appears that elementary tree care was ignored, and for a resort that is not on. To write it off as an accident is a cop out. If it was dead then it would have no fronds, was that the case?

Poor little kid and family, maybe less focus on the cash register and more on what is around it.

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