Climbing accident, Northwich, Cheshire

[tree-fancier123]

2 hours ago, Ledburyjosh said:

That's not a good idea to be fuxking about with blocking a big tree down at head height...

is there a difference between a good idea and a sensible one?

maybe head height is OTT, but providing you can get it off the stump without trapping your saw then progressively cutting the butt higher off the ground, even to waist height allows the whole weight of the tree to work in your favour, of course it can drop unexpectedly while you're cutting, my ways aren't intended for professional use, only for have a go sole traders

 

[Domino]

Basically impossible to tell from photos or persons descriptions. 

Nonetheless - it's not complicated. There are two options.

1 - Mega access platform with sufficient reach to work from very top of hung up tree and suitable outreach to be safe of anything falling during dismantle process. 

2 - Forestry style, mega winch on something powerful and mega heavy and pull that bastard down. 

[Steven P]

9 minutes ago, Domino said:

2 - Forestry style, mega winch on something powerful and mega heavy and pull that bastard down. 

 

without being there and knowing all the background and full kit list... is that big blue jobby on the right of the video big enough and powerful enough? (all good from an armchair of course)

[spuddog0507]

10 hours ago, monkeybusiness said:

I’d suggest that quite a few commenting on here (along with at least one person on the site that is the subject of this post) would benefit very strongly from doing their windblow ticket as a bare minimum - there are some worrying advisory suggestions being bandied about. It is clear that several here have no winching experience, which should really be the first approach considered when dealing with hung up trees. 

My thoughts exactly as well, been reading every comment on this issue and TBH some of the comments are yet just another accident waiting to happen,, knowing the right cuts, winching experience and experience in dealing with trees in this situation all go a long way,, people on here saying do this do that as they have probably done it once and got away with it ?. one smart arse i worked with a few times knew every thing about tree work and you couldnt tell him any thing at all as Collin was one of them that had swallowed the map and shit the dictionary, hence poor Collin been in a wheel chair now for several yrs as he got pinned against a wall taking a big Willow down on a council job, There was a HSE investigation and Collin only had CS30/31 and the relevant climbing tickets, what the full out come was i not to sure but will make a phone call or 2 tomorrow,,

[spuddog0507]

1 hour ago, Steven P said:

 

without being there and knowing all the background and full kit list... is that big blue jobby on the right of the video big enough and powerful enough? (all good from an armchair of course)

The big blue jobby is well man enough for the job,, 

[Peasgood]

8 hours ago, spuddog0507 said:

The big blue jobby is well man enough for the job,, 

The tractor is strong enough but I would be surprised if they had a rope strong enough or long enough.

[Deafhead]

1 hour ago, Peasgood said:

The tractor is strong enough but I would be surprised if they had a rope strong enough or long enough.

I've dealt with a few hung up windblown and always used a steel rope.

[peds]

2 hours ago, Peasgood said:

The tractor is strong enough but I would be surprised if they had a rope strong enough or long enough.

 

Endless strops shackled together. I've pulled down a few trees of similar size in recent months with six or seven loops linked together.

[AHPP]

13 minutes ago, peds said:

 

Endless strops shackled together. I've pulled down a few trees of similar size in recent months with six or seven loops linked together.

 

Something I've been thinking about lately is the proper order in which things should fail to be safest/cheapest/most useful. Just something to bear in mind when you've got a chain of heavy steel bits with pingy strap bits in between.

Edited March 23 by AHPP

[Peasgood]

1 minute ago, AHPP said:

 

Something I've been thinking about lately is the proper order in which things should fail to be safest/most useful. Just something to have in mind when you've got a chain of heavy steel bits with pingy strap bits in between.

It is definitely not a spectator sport and it would certainly introduce a whole new set of potential disasters with all those folk on site.

I do pull things with chains, steel ropes and a big ships rope I have but not when there are any spectators in range. A difficult thing to organise with this situation as I expect there was nobody there in overall control. I also expect each person there assumed the other people there were competent at their particular job and therefore less likely to step in. ie. the tractor driver probably never even noticed where any of the climbers anchor points were, just as the climber wouldn't be checking the pins on the tractor should they have been used.