WHOOPS

[drtreelove]

 

[cooked]

I did a fair bit of tree work in my time and I occasionally had sleepless nights before some jobs. I can't say I find this stuff funny to be honest.

The nearest I came to it was when a tree I was felling turned out to be hollow.

On one side.

The third, felling cut consisted of two seconds cutting, the tree went off at an angle to what I had intended and demolished a rustic fence. 

I reckon professionals, full timers, have more accidents (per number of trees cut) than people like me, as they become nonchalant about things. 

[drtreelove]

5 hours ago, cooked said:

 

I reckon professionals, full timers, have more accidents (per number of trees cut) than people like me, as they become nonchalant about things. 

Only the wreckless or intoxicated, or those working without good teamwork and good attitude. True professionals work clean and sober, and learn to assess the tree and risk potentials, and to make accurate cuts and use technical rigging, and to watch each others back and communicate well. 

 

I had a perfect 40+ year safety record, no serious crew injuries or property damage, until an incident spoiled that. I left a job to take care of estimates, but I didn't know the climber and the groundman were arguing about personal issues. My bad for not reading my crew. The climber impatiently make a big cut before the groundman could get clear and the groundman ended up with serious multiple leg fractures and a US$30,000 hospital bill. 

 

In Thailand a few years ago I offered to help an expat acquaintance with pruning of a medium size raintree. He declined my offer and said his gardener wanted to do it.  The gardener fell from the tree and broke his back. The expat had an initial hospital emergency room bill of 40,000 baht, I don't know what the final bill was or if the climber ever recovered. 

 

A funny story, my wife and I were interviewing a local Chiang Mai tree service owner as potential to refer for some large tree work that we had consulted on. We asked him who his climbers were and how he trained them.  He replied that he didn't have to train them, he hired Meo hill-tribesmen because they were natural good climbers. So we asked him about insurance and what he did if a tree worker was injured.  He looked at us for a few seconds like why are we asking a stupid question, and then replied; we get another Meo. 

Edited May 13, 2018 by drtreelove