Climbing accident, Northwich, Cheshire

[peds]

'kin hell. That seems really poorly thought out.

[Steve Bullman]

I don’t like to be judgmental about these things specially given the outcome, but it really is hard to understand how anyone thought this was a good idea: climber and ground staff alike 

[Joe Newton]

1 hour ago, 5thelement said:

 

I know the first point of the WAHR, but we can obviously assume that that horse has well and truly bolted. 
A decision was made to WAH, was there a safer method than climbing, probably several, but none of them were used. 

Why is it obvious to assume that?

 

Given the terrible work methods chosen, is it too much of a stretch to imagine that exuberence took over from practical, risk averse thinking?

[Joe Newton]

43 minutes ago, Steve Bullman said:

I don’t like to be judgmental about these things specially given the outcome, but it really is hard to understand how anyone thought this was a good idea: climber and ground staff alike 

I don't think anyone's being harsh on the lad.

 

I've done the daft hero stuff before when I had something to prove. Got away with it so far too. After a while I came to realise that getting away with it is great until you don't. Plenty of hero's in graveyards.

 

These days I give myself a little pat on the back for walking away/reorganising poorly thought out/dangerous jobs.

[topchippyles]

These is not a chap on this forum who's not cut corners at some time or other in their working career. The amount of times I've gone up ladders to do a roof repair knowing I should have put up scaffolding ive lost count. 

[Mark Bolam]

That’s true Les, but this was a bit more than cutting corners.

 

Everything about the way the job was carried out was totally wrong.

[Mike Hill]

14 hours ago, 5thelement said:

Better than climbing it though?

No

 

He probably could have tripped that tree out,  but didn't seem to have a grasp of advanced climbing techniques.So he made a series of bad decisions that resulted in the accident. 

 

It's been said before,there were no targets under the tree,so whether he tripped it by climbing or cut and winched made no odds.

 

Over here I would have used a big hiab and lifted it out. Mainly because the road was already closed and the truck could remove the timber.

 

But none of us were on that site,however by the number of eager camera men,his plan had been widely communicated. 

 

 

[JLA1990]

 

 

 

[kram]

Did his anchor point break out or the rope snap? Seems it was quite high in the other tree, see it move but dont see anything break out.

 

Thanks for posting the videos. I'm sure we can learn from it.

Edited Thursday at 09:07 by kram

[kram]

I assume it was the climbers choice in how he decided to tackle the tree, and likely he wanted to climb it, but he made some poor decisions. Choice is good. I dont want my choices to be restricted due to a few people getting it wrong.

 

Safety is important, but if a job can be considered safe enough - another tree to safely anchor to, it shouldnt be the only consideration. I want the ability to climb mildly hazardous trees and take responsibility for my actions, hopefully in the process I will not die or become a cripple. This tree/situation may be a bad example, even so I'd like HSE to quietly go away.

 

The most important fact is, trees are dangerous and you can get it wrong climbing, or on the ground, we make our choices and are not forced to do anything by an employer.

If the employer gets a big fine, that helps no one. May mean there is no job left when the guy recovers.