BACKGROUND: On a clear summer day, a logging company employee was felling the few hardwood trees remaining on a steep slope in the Appalachians. (The terrain was judged to be too difficult to harvest the trees with the crew’s tracked feller-buncher.)
PERSONAL CHARACTERISTICS: The 51-year-old employee was performing his regular duties of felling timber for the six-man operation. He had 23 years of logging experience and was considered fully trained for his job. He was wearing a hardhat.
UNSAFE ACT AND CONDITION: The employee cut several vines that were entangled with a 28-inch-diameter poplar tree. However, a thick, uncut vine was still attached from the top of the poplar to the top of a hollow walnut tree located approximately ten feet uphill from the poplar. The timber cutter cleared a path of retreat and then felled the poplar.
ACCIDENT: As the poplar fell, the vine pulled on the hollow walnut tree and broke off its top. Although a co-worker noticed the top of the walnut falling toward the employee and began yelling, the victim was unable to get out of the way quickly enough. The vine pulled the top of the walnut tree directly onto the timber cutter’s hardhat.
INJURY: The tree top broke the employee’s neck and killed him instantly.
RECOMMENDATIONS FOR CORRECTION: Check thoroughly for overhead hazards before beginning felling operations, especially on steep slopes. Cut all vines and remove dead, hollow, and other “danger” trees by mechanical means, if possible, before beginning work within the “two-tree-lengths” danger zone.
Former FRA President Ken Rolston offered excellent advice: “Remember, fellows, there is no tree out here so important that it is worth getting killed over.”
Courtesy of the Forest Resources Association: https://www.forestresources.org/