Climbing accident.

[Nassau111]

I'm relatively new on here but have been climbing for about 12 years, I've got tickets coming out my eyeballs. Irata trained. Worked all over the world. I'd just like to highlight what happened to me on Wednesday last week.

 

Climbing a relatively simple 65ft Corsican pine, full take down, had other vegetation below, decided on a zip line system to take the branches and stem that I was taking down. All going swimmingly.

 

I had one other climber with me on site. I was the foreman at the time. The time was 12:15pm. Had 45 mins before I had to come down for lunch, I then proceeded to carry on and thought I'd get this done by 1pm, to then proceed onto the afternoons work.

 

I write this as I made a catastrophic error, I had my main line up the tree and was stripped into the tree, but as I was waiting for the groundsman to finish I became a little bit lazy, I put the gob into the tree then attached the Sling to the zip line we had set up, ( never ever done this is 12 years of climbing) I then proceeded to start the felling cut. Only to realise with horror that I was still attached to the felling bit. I then felt the tree move (bit I had cut) and tried to grab my strop but in doing so had flipped it off my main stem that I was holding.

I then proceeded to fall 45ft to the floor. No rope harness or anything just an ms 201 to fall on top of me.

 

The point I'm getting at is this "could" have been prevented. I take full blame as it was just a momentary lack of thinking. But had the other climber on the ground picked up on what I did wrong, blew his whistle and alerted me to what I was doing wrong then I may not have fallen off out the tree.

 

This is primarily just for safety. You'll probably all get a heads up of health and safety about this accident.

[Stubby]

I sincerely hope you are not badly injured bud . Horrible thing to happen . Complacency can be a nasty bugger .......... Thanks for posting .

[Steve Bullman]

Thanks for sharing. Are you ok?

 

I'm not quite understanding exactly what happened here though. If your main line was sill attached to the piece you were zip lining how come you didn't end up going down the zip line with it? Or was it a vertical zip line?

 

 

Sent from my iPhone using Arbtalk

[SteveA]

Jesus, that sounds like a frightening incident!

Glad you didn't land on anything spikey, etc.

I don't climb or know much about climbing, I just do groundwork, but do occasionally point out if something doesn't look right.... be it with the chipper or ropes, etc.

 

There are so many potential accidents in arb work and you are right to point out the importance of looking after each other.

cheers, steve

[Paul Melarange]

Hat off to you for posting.

 

This happened to someone on a site that we ended up working at (because they lost the contract). It seemed to be the normal thing for this company to put a sink cut in for topping out before removing their anchor point. I know this because we used one of the employees from the original contractor and he did the same (well until I saw him do it).

 

I can see that work positioning might be slightly easier, but it's just too easy to continue to put the back cut in through force of habit.

[jomoco]

I have remained tied into the crane to allow more comfortable cutting of real fat trunk picks with a big saw, stopping about a foot shy of release, then pulling my line and tying into the trunk, then completing the release cut.

 

Cutting with big saws on big wood's so much easier suspended from your lower saddle rings, than your upper rings n lanyard, on the wall.

 

Had my lead groundie trained to calm the newbie groundies screaming he's still tied to the crane!

 

This biz only requires a momentary lapse of critical thinking to kill or maim.

 

Hope you recover quickly and completely mate.

 

Jomoco

[Marc]

Hat off to you for posting.

 

This happened to someone on a site that we ended up working at (because they lost the contract). It seemed to be the normal thing for this company to put a sink cut in for topping out before removing their anchor point. I know this because we used one of the employees from the original contractor and he did the same (well until I saw him do it).

 

I can see that work positioning might be slightly easier, but it's just too easy to continue to put the back cut in through force of habit.

 

I feel it's a perfectly acceptable practice to do this and is documented as a recognised practice in a few places, as Jomoco points out it allows for more comfortable positioning and less strain/fatigue during a day's work.

Complacency is what caused the accident, Nassau has admitted this and accepted it, it's a harsh bitch and I think we are all guilty of it at some point in our careers although it rarely results in a serious accident, this time it did.

 

Nassau i Hope your okay and will make a full recovery

[TIMON]

Fair play to you for having the courage and humility to share this.

I almost did this very same thing myself a couple of years ago. My mate shouted up to me just before I put the back cut in and it scared the living day lights out of me. I've always been really careful not to repeat the mistake.

I hope you're not badly hurt and make a speedy recovery.

[jomoco]

I can remember three situations where I had to intervene to stop disaster, once from the ground, twice from the tree.

 

Mid 80's, from the ground watching a fellow climber cutting the wrong leader of an intertwined crossover, unaware he was cutting the leader he was tied into. Had to bean him pretty hard with a rock to stop him.

 

Mid 90's, while training and tutoring my older brother to prune big eucs with no gaffs, on Torrey Pines Golf Course. I had just tied into the top of a big euc when I looked over to see how my brother was doing pruning the tree next to mine. To my horror, he was making his way out to the end of a lateral the same height as his TIP, which leaned out in the same direction as the lateral, unaware that his TIP was inching upward and outward following him and about to slip off the top of the leader altogether. Fortunately he heard me screaming at him to look at his TIP about to follow him to his death!

 

Early 2000's, again from the top of a big euc, I looked down and saw a rookie temp groundie, disobeying my orders to only drag brush to the whole tree chipper and stage it, and let only the lead groundie feed it into the chipper. It was a macho thing cuz he was a burly muscle bound 240 lb dude, while the lead groundie was a little 160 lb munchkin like me.

 

So I look down and watched as big boy grabbed a big leader and fed it into the chipper, and stand there as it flipped over violently, knocking him off his feet, and dragging him by the knee towards the feed table, in increments due to the autofeed of the 1800 chipper.

 

So I whistle at the lead groundie and point towards the chipper, whereupon he made a heroic sprint to engage the safety bar, just as the feedwheels grabbed his knee. Off to urgent care for a dozen or so stitches. An extremely close call narrowly avoided by good teamwork n signaling between the lead groundie n I.

 

Stay in this biz long enough and you'll experience lotsa high adrenaline fueled moments of sheer terror!

 

Jomoco

Edited October 3, 2016 by jomoco

[Stumpy Grinder]

Having come from an aviation background in the military, publicising accidents or 'near misses' is absolutely the right thing to do! It raises awareness of what can go wrong and hopefully lessen the risk by learning from the experiences of others.

A Near Miss is an unplanned event that did not result in injury, illness, or damage – but had the potential to do so. Only a fortunate break in the chain of events prevented an injury, fatality or damage; in other words, a miss that was nonetheless very near.

Your mate blowing the whistle could have broken the chain, as could you by not straying from normal practise. Sadly, your event sounds a little more than a near miss. I can only assume the vegetation below broke your fall?

I have the greatest respect for you posting this as it must have been very difficult for you to admit 'catastrophic error' as you put it. I hope it is mainly your pride that is dented and you are not badly injured? You are clearly well enough to post this, albeit 5 days after the event. I hope you make a speedy and full recovery. This event will undoubtedly make you (and hopefully others) safer in the future.

I bet that 45 foot journey felt like slow motion?!

Regards,

SG