Woodchipper Accident - Demo

[Ian Flatters]

Confession time here. I've had a rope fed in to a chipper while still attached to me. The chipper was my old Asplundh Whisper chuck and duck. I was up a tree and my groundy was feeding brash into it. A serious of silly mistakes on my par really. Chipper too near the tree, rope not bundled up, hadn't discussed the job methodology with a new groundy. Pretty much everything I should have done I didn't.

Anyway, I had a whole heap of cypress limbs lying across the rope, the groundy didn't see it, picked up the bundle of brash, rope and all, and threw it in the chipper. I felt my line go taught as the drum took up the slack and then as soon as there was tension on the line there was a big puff of yellow fibres and the blades cut the rope. There was no rope left around the drum but heaps of little chipped bits in the back of the truck.

I'd be interested to see this experiment done again with a little bit of resistance on the rope to see what would happen.

 

 

I've seen a couple of levels wearing lines accidentally go in a tw150. Both times they stalled the machine out.

 

Thankfully I've always been paranoid about a climbing line going through.

[Taupotreeman]

I've seen a couple of levels wearing lines accidentally go in a tw150. Both times they stalled the machine out.

 

Thankfully I've always been paranoid about a climbing line going through.

 

 

It was definitely a wake up call and I immediately changed the way we did things. Rope is either bundled and tied, up with the climber or the chipper is further away than the rope can reach and the groundy is always to check for ropes before feeding the chipper.

[Lucan]

I heard the reason Bandit made this video was due to the number of fatalities of climbers due to this in the USA, but I understand there has been at least one in the UK, Sweden and no doubt other countries.

[Taupotreeman]

I heard the reason Bandit made this video was due to the number of fatalities of climbers due to this in the USA, but I understand there has been at least one in the UK, Sweden and no doubt other countries.

 

 

I'm not sure that Bandit made it. If it's the same video (I haven't watched this one) it was taken by one of the guys on a demo. The original post was taken down of Facebook but then but back up a few days later. Might be a completely different vid tho.

[oldwoodcutter]

This is the sort of video that makes my blood run cold.

[GlobalNewark]

 

 

 

 

 

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Impressed Dave, good effort. I think most misinterpret the speed chippers feed at & the speed of the drum/disc. Remember the knives do not grab the wood like a cable. It is difficult to stall a bandit as our machines feed slower but have a lot of torque. He video was put together by an American dealer, Cal Line.

[Tom D]

The reason the dummy is dragged in so fast is that its a drum chipper and the rope has wound onto the drum. If that happens you are in big trouble. Best make sure the rope doesn't go in in the first place.

[kimtree]

not sure of the full details but a young bloke died in Queensland quite a few years ago when the tail of his climbing line was fed into a chipper and it pulled him into a fork and he had a heart attack and died in the tree.Never got any where near the chipper and still died

 

When i was climbing i drummed it into the ground crew to never allow a rope any where near the chipper but it still came close a couple of times

[HertsWood]

Many years ago while taking part in national Arb day at a site in Leics, the MD of Midland Tree Surgeons (Robert Kennedy)was doing a piece to camera, while standing adjacent a set up if kit including rope, saws etc.

About 50 ft away Southern Tree Surgeons (as was, pre-Bartlett Tree), we're working on a tree using a Gibbs Woodchuck chipper, grounds an picked up a pile of brushwood and fed it in - not knowing that he had picked up rope as well. Kennedy was standing in the coils of rope and when the chipper grabbed the rope and it went tight, Kennedy's leg was turned into a corkscrew.....!