Girl killed by falling branch.

[cousin jack]

Very tragic, thoughts go out to her family.

[tommer9]

How can anyone even think the teachers are to blame!? If you decide they are responsible for this incident, think of the number of lifes they must be saving by teaching kids every other school day! A good enough reason to give them their pensions... or spend that money on tree work...

 

 

 

My thoughts lie with the girls family

 

No-Im not apportioning blame here-its a sad case as every avoidable injury / death is, it just highlights our duty of care, we, as tree surgeons just identify the very specific risks inherent in trees in the landscape,

 

Kx

 

firstly it is nature that has caused the tree to shed the limb (albeit storm damage).

 

it should have been noted by anybody who is aware of such things, but that is not always the case.

 

council tree assesors by me don't even climb up a tree, and judge it from the ground - so they are doing jobs wrong for a kick off.

 

it is a very sad and aviodable mistake in that could happen again, so our thoughts should be with the family at this time.

 

Can we PLEASE keep this in mind.

[Stephen Blair]

In the film Saving Private Ryan there is a scene where Tom Hanks is looking through a bag full of Dog Tags for Ryan, he and his squad are not taking the consideration of the platoon who is walking by that has lost these men.

This is 1 of those moments guys, offer your condolences and show respect.

RIP and thoughts to the family.

[alex_m]

such a waste of a young life. terrible news.

on the poplar subject, a fairly big (70ft ish) one shed one of the big stems recently near our yard. it came down onto a 'milk n more' truck, almost killing the driver. the evidence of it is still there - it crushed the metal pedestrian barriers like they were made of matchsticks! also, it was nr a primary school, so could have been alot worse.

[Mark James]

That's that is a sin that happened to that poor girl.

As for the blame thing it seems to be a British thing everybody is always looking to see who it RESPONSIBLE

These things happen for time that being freak accidents, thoughts are with her family.

 

 

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[likeitorlumpit]

Very sad- thoughts with the family

[Paul Barton]

I didn't mean to start a blame thread when I commented that I hoped the owner had an inspection regime in place. At the core of this is a terribly sad story.

 

However, we are by nature a forum that discusses tree care and management - it's what we do for a living. This sad event may affects how we approach our work every day when assessing and working on trees that affect people. It's not wrong to look at a news report such as this and see what we can learn from it.

[Highland Forestry]

FFS you lot. Lets not turn this thread into a 'who is to blame' thing. You will achieve nothing but to belittle this awful incident, and it wont help anything anyway.

Now wind your necks in please and show at least a modecom of respect.

 

Sorry mate, I can't read this and not reply..

 

If anybody owns a tree in a public place, be it parkland, town, open country estate, garden, whatever.. then they (the owner) has a duty to the public to make sure their trees are safe and that people don't die.

 

Blame is exactly what this situation is about, whether you like it or not, the facts speak for themselves.

 

How would you feel if your daughter had just been killed by a falling branch? You would immediately want to know what there was a branch ready to fall on somebody and then in time you would want to make sure the same thing didn't happen again.

 

It's not the time for winding your neck in, it is surely the time for people to realise that professional tree surveying, risk management, mitigation and corrective remedial action is absolutley 100% imperative.

 

A girl has died, and this is extremley sad, my deepest condolences go out to her family and friends.

 

However, was this an accident.... or an incident?

 

Personally.... to my mind it is an incident, a fatality, in a public place, caused through negligence. Budget constraints have no place here - if something is dangerous it needs sorted, or suffer blood on your hands.

 

I am fed up with the ammount of tree surveys I carry out that ultimately end up in with remedial works not being carried out, and am shocked that many land owners seriously believe that they can mitigate for dangerous trees by just having a survey and ignoring the works required to minimise risk.

 

As I understand it, presently around three people a year die from falling trees, branches etc.. how can you put a price on a life?

 

I would argue that rather than showing respect and winding ones neck in, it is about time that the general public, businesses and land owners were educated properly and forced to realise their liability and the issues caused through their negligence and ignorance.

 

Sorry to voice this aloud in a public forum but it needs said.

[sean freeman]

I would humbly suggest that anyone who is seriously interested in tis aspect of Arb consultancy work should visit the Arboricultural Information Exchange website Welcome to the Arboricultural Information Exchange. and read the Case Law examples.

 

Tort Law in the UK is extremely well developed and the manner in which relevant responsibilities are attributed is repeatedly defined in every case.

 

There is not (IMO) any disrespect to the memory of any individual who has been killed or seriously injured by the balanced examination of what is known about the circumstances of the specific case (provided of course that such a discussion does not represent sub judice).

 

BTW I personally feel that whilst it is difficult for some to accept at an emotional level that human life could (or indeed should) be defined monetarily it is so defined, and has been for quite some time...and this 'price or worth' of a human life is precisely what enables the risk management process to be carried out across every aspect of all our lives.

[Tony Croft aka hamadryad]

Sorry mate, I can't read this and not reply..

 

If anybody owns a tree in a public place, be it parkland, town, open country estate, garden, whatever.. then they (the owner) has a duty to the public to make sure their trees are safe and that people don't die.

 

Blame is exactly what this situation is about, whether you like it or not, the facts speak for themselves.

 

How would you feel if your daughter had just been killed by a falling branch? You would immediately want to know what there was a branch ready to fall on somebody and then in time you would want to make sure the same thing didn't happen again.

 

It's not the time for winding your neck in, it is surely the time for people to realise that professional tree surveying, risk management, mitigation and corrective remedial action is absolutley 100% imperative.

 

A girl has died, and this is extremley sad, my deepest condolences go out to her family and friends.

 

However, was this an accident.... or an incident?

 

Personally.... to my mind it is an incident, a fatality, in a public place, caused through negligence. Budget constraints have no place here - if something is dangerous it needs sorted, or suffer blood on your hands.

 

I am fed up with the ammount of tree surveys I carry out that ultimately end up in with remedial works not being carried out, and am shocked that many land owners seriously believe that they can mitigate for dangerous trees by just having a survey and ignoring the works required to minimise risk.

 

As I understand it, presently around three people a year die from falling trees, branches etc.. how can you put a price on a life?

 

I would argue that rather than showing respect and winding ones neck in, it is about time that the general public, businesses and land owners were educated properly and forced to realise their liability and the issues caused through their negligence and ignorance.

 

Sorry to voice this aloud in a public forum but it needs said.

 

Without seeing the tree for myself it is pointless arguing the case. FULL STOP.

 

however it is worth arguing the ins and outs of "reasonable"

 

then of course we have the difficulties in the various responsibilities we have, for example, environment/biodiversity/people/property.

 

This field poses great challenges, and moral issues, I think it is fair to say that arboricultiural risk management is one of the most difficult fields to work in.

 

trees are living things, and as much as human nature/science may try, absolute quantification of the risks will NEVER be achieved.

 

There are three main things we must decide for the future

 

1) Given the extremely low risk of fatalities from tree failures do we REALLY need to be so incensed at each event?

2) Is 3-6 lives per annum worth more than the combined contribution trees make to our planet as a whole?

3) What will the consequences of this attitude towards those that have trees result in?

 

We are in grave danger of committing a great crime against nature, and of justifying it to ourselves in attaching a human element (blame) to that crime.

 

be warned, be afraid, this is dangerous territory, and the dangers that result are going to be monumental and effect millions of lives, billions of lives not just one or two a year.

 

the human ANIMAL was blessed with a brain of immense abilities and power, use it.