Stupid mistakes you've made doing tree work

[Gray git]

Complimented a female client we were working for and ended up marrying her....
Felled a big maple in the front garden of a house that turned out to have two entrances and we were actually in the back garden.
Trusted a gobby new lad to actually know what he was on about while rigging a tree over a clutter garden, when I instructed him to rap the rigging line that I'd tied to a large limb over the greenhouse and as I watched the limb cut said greenhouse in two reality struck that he'd wrapped my 11mm climbing line around the bollard not the 16mm lowering rope.

[tree-fancier123]

34 minutes ago, Gray git said:

Felled a big maple in the front garden of a house that turned out to have two entrances and we were actually in the back garden

wow - reminds me of Aspenarbs tagline - treementia - affecting those who keep felling the wrong trees

 

so how did you smooth things out?

[Gray git]

wow - reminds me of Aspenarbs tagline - treementia - affecting those who keep felling the wrong trees
 
so how did you smooth things out?

Ha ha hadn't seen that tag with the app

Didn't charge, felled the correct tree and bought them a lovely new tree to go in a better place, still do work for them every year 8 years on but am never allowed to forget that 1st job.

[Billhook]

10 hours ago, Ty Korrigan said:

 

3. Felling a line of lawsons under medium voltage lines which had been topped on our request by ERDF in preparation for the job.

However, as I was felling at the midway point, one of the tops previously knocked out had got hung up and pressed down on its neighbour.

As the tree went over, the trapped top sprang free. It flicked up and got caught on one of the lines.

I was under the tree and saw it stop mid fell but didn't see the reason why. I touched the trunk thinking I ought to stick my felling bar in there and got a belt like a massive vibration going up my arm.

I stepped away 'shocked' 

Then the hinge began to smoulder and burst into flame.

Looking up I could see the top of the tree was on fire.

Once it had burned out the tree came over.

Then... realisation dawned upon my began to shake with shock and felt quite sick over my close call.

 Ty

I was walking down our driveway and looked up at a medium size elder which had a few finger size branches reaching the domestic power line.  I could not quite see if they were high enough to be touching the line so I gave the tree a shake.

I still could not really tell if they were but turned away to go and collect the chainsaw to take it down as a precaution.

 

The next thing I knew was a stinging burning sensation in my left shoulder and my immediate thought was that I had shaken a hornet out of the elder which had landed on my shoulder.  However on looking at my shoulder my t shirt had a hole burnt into it by a small elder twig which was smouldering there.

I had just about gathered my wits and brushed the twig away when there was a buzzing followed by a loud crack and both lines had melted and fallen live to the ground nearby.

 

I was nearly really physically shocked but I was very mentally shocked as to how a very innocent shaking of a fairly light  tree with twig like upper branches could do so much damage.

 

[Stephen Blair]

Must be an age thing Steve, I've had more near misses in the last 3 months than I have in 20 years.
I took out my first roof tiles too on a job last week!

[openspaceman]

1 hour ago, Stephen Blair said:

Must be an age thing Steve, I've had more near misses in the last 3 months than I have in 20 years.
 

Seriously age is a big factor, just look at the HSE death statistics for all industry, those over 60 accounting for 25% of deaths

[Stubby]

48 minutes ago, openspaceman said:

Seriously age is a big factor, just look at the HSE death statistics for all industry, those over 60 accounting for 25% of deaths

That's me fecked then .....

[openspaceman]

20 minutes ago, Stubby said:

That's me fecked then .....

Not necessarily so, it just means consideration must be taken for us senior citizens when working.

 

Anyway you said you were retired and no one's rushing to ask me for my services.

[TGB]

Not really lately but awhile back,start of the year i was rigging down a poplar,had my block set up,anchored in etc and i was taking quite a sizeable chunk of a lateral.As the chunk dropped i realised the rigging rope was running against my rope.

Shit myself but i got off with it cause i pulled my lanyard tighter to take the strain off my mainline.Could easily have burned through my mainline if it was a heaver chunk of wood and run for couple of seconds longer..

 

Still cant quite understand how it happened.Ive noticed all the little near misses ive had are in the afternoon later in the week- tiredness is a major factor

And possibly dehydration. Along with other organs, the brain needs plenty of free flowing blood to function properly.

 

Note. I'm not saying water thins the blood. Blood doesn't quite work like that. But only a small % drop in bodily fluid, can and does have a detrimental effect on the way certain organs function.

[Stubby]

59 minutes ago, openspaceman said:

Not necessarily so, it just means consideration must be taken for us senior citizens when working.

 

Anyway you said you were retired and no one's rushing to ask me for my services.

This is true