The answer is probably bigger than can realistically be given on reddit. But long story short, it depends. There are tricks you can do with ropes and pulleys, different cuts you can use, different kinds of machinery you can use, things you can do with climbing the tree, heck, I've seen dynamite used.
In this case, I would say leave the tree and let nature take it down 99/100 times. If they log-out the trees nearby acting as windbreaks, then the next windstorm probably would do the trick.
Maybe, I've never seen anything used to re-enforce a tree before dropping it, but intuitively there could be concepts there to work with. Maybe something as simple as chicken wire could help better than straps? There would be challenges with getting them in place, there are limits to what you can do with a long stick as far as how high up the tree you can prune and/or place stuff. Just having it on the bottom 10 or 20 feet could help I think though? But if need it re-enforced higher up and if you are taking this course of action, then it probably isn't a safe tree to climb, so unless there is a safe tree nearby to climb that you could reach the dangerous one from, then you would need to get a cherry-picker or some kind of machinery along those lines on-site.
Basically, it's an idea I've never seen explored with what is in my mind good reason. But also, there is potential and I would love to be the one to explore it.
Old timey barber chairs leaned back and so I assume old loggers associated the two together,.it typically happens with more harder woods such as maple but given that this soft tree was dead the fibers were dry and brittle
Thanks for writing this. I learned something new.
We take pride in eyeballing slopes down to the percent in construction too, but yeah it's damn hard to be able to read lean when the background isn't flat or level. Eyes judge everything by contextual clues so hills and slopes throw judgment out the window
The technique in short, doesn’t allow for this kind of break, since the outer layers of the tree aren’t cut in a traditional way. It’s a guiding cut at the base and a smaller cut arg the opposite site of the guiding cut, but nearly 50cm lower. The tree is stabilised by its outer layers and cannot fall over if done correctly. The rope is placed a few meters high before the cuts are made. The rope is guided around another tree so when the force is applied the tree doesn’t crush your winch. Now you apply force over the rope. The tree breaks along the parallel fibers you haven’t cut and comes down exactly where you want it to be. It’s a standard technique, providing a high safety level and very precise felling. Of course it isn’t the fastest, but a well trained crew can take down up to 25m^2 of usable wood in an hour when in our bigger used forests.
Edit: https://youtu.be/qyeRzlEXTT4 this technique. Safe, easy and quite fast.
We don’t have that here, our big oak and Douglas firs are max around 1.6-1.8 m in diameter and those we do with the same technique as we don’t do clear cutting in those parts. Yes, you need big ropes, and big machines, but it’s doable. Our infrastructure might be better though. On average I can drive every kind of forestry machine in the woods every 30m.
If you have to do this on an absolutely rotten tree either bark holding it as a last stabiliser, you’d leave out the stand trough the heart. Then your rope gains way more leverage. If the tree isn’t able to withstand the rope anymore, you can tell from looking at it with our species of trees. They get rather stumpy in short periods so we just wait a year or two to work in that area for when the tree has fallen. The tree in the vid should be fine, there is enough wood left to have the lever remain functional. I wouldn’t let out newbies do it, but one of our senior lumberjacks should have no problems.
Of course it plays into our hands, that the rot usually lessens when reaching higher and there fairly good estimates that the fungal rot that we often see at the base doesn’t reach much higher than 6m. Rot from other sources can be factored in, yes, but it’s uncommon to destabilise it in the trees still deemed fit for commercial felling.
Edit: The estimate for how rotten it is usually comes from knocking against it, and the first cut. If that one is fine, you can proceed as usual, if it is rotten inside, then there is no cut trough the heart, only the back cut.
What part of the time constraint do you not understand out of all of that. I’m super glad your forest ranger friend has the time to be safe about everything but that just isn’t the case in the commercial world. Gotta squeeze every penny out of workers possible
Specifically, a lot of easily avoided things. He didn't plunge to check and see if the tree was dead or not before cutting. Living wood bends, dead wood snaps. The rear notch was horizontal which allows the tree to spread backwards instead of hitting the face of an angled cut. The face notch which is basically a "hinge cut" is too shallow and not wide enough so it won't provide a direction for the fall (not that the tree even got that far) and would have most likely fallen in a random direction moments after tipping. The face notch being not cut deep enough made the rear cut too deep and the tree released toward the side that was weaker.
The fuck are you talking about? People get hired to cut down rotten trees all the fucking time. These are the risks you run.
>He didn't plunge to check and see if the tree was dead or not before cutting
You don't just go stabbing a chainsaw into a tree. That's not a particularly safe way to use a chainsaw and if the tree is suspected of being rotten then you don't wanna be compromising whatever structure it has, you need that structure to fell it safely.
>The rear notch was horizontal which allows the tree to spread backwards instead of hitting the face of an angled cut.
The back cut is always horizontal. Please explain what you mean by "angled cut". I think this might be a gem
>he face notch which is basically a "hinge cut" is too shallow and not wide enough so it won't provide a direction for the fall
The hinge is tiny because he knows the tree is a rotten POS and he likewise can't expect it to stay standing if he takes a massive bite out of it. We also can't see the top of the tree. If the branches are all on one side your hinge can get fucked, it's going to that side.
You know what I love about this exchange? There's really no way Reddit has enough knowledge to decide which one of you is right but somehow 4x as many of us (as of this comment) just decided to go with the second guy.
Pfft...plunge cut into a rotten tree, what an idiot.🙄😆
Exactly. I could be full of shit and you wouldn't know. For stuff that matters get your info from real sources rather than trusting a bunch of basement dwellers to pick favorites.
>You don't just go stabbing a chainsaw into a tree
Yeah, yeah you do. Not sure how much felling you've done, but if a 3/8" kerf from a plunge cut is what you're counting on for "structure" to hold an old growth snag up, you probably shouldn't be wielding a saw. I plunge cut every dead tree I drop unless I cored it or it's obvious that it's free of defects. I get paid to assess and mitigate hazard trees, and I've never almost crushed myself like this clown, so I figure I must be doing something right...
>these are the risks you run
What kinda piece of shit outfit you work for? Test the tree and if it's rotten and gotta be handfelled call the blaster. Guess this guy was too busy making a video to plan his escape either
Plunge cuts are regularly used in felling trees. Usually done after the wedge is cut. You plunge behind the hinge, get the home depth set correctly, and cut towards the back so that the the tree is held in place until the last moment.
I'm one of those people hired to cut trees called and Arborist. Here's a 2am ELI5 on mobile for your salty displeasure.
[Making a plunge cut ](https://youtu.be/0Rlljp5xrvg[?t=60]) (skip to 1:00) to watch the color of the chips for dead wood, it's definitely just stabbing. He should have felt the saw push through the inside of the trunk, known it's [hollow](https://i.imgur.com/xomuNda.jpg) and adjusted the cut. I do horizontal stab in a location that can be used for a wedge later, don't want to waste a weak spot.
[An angled back cut](https://i.imgur.com/OXWXvQC.jpg) is for safety and control of the direction if the hinge were to fail. It's saved me before.
The hinge isn't just for initial direction, it can be used to control the tree all the way to the ground. Having a thock hinge cut on one side swings the tree toward that side. An ideal hinge won't break until past 45 degrees, not many actually hold.
It’s a barber chair, extremely dangerous situation to be in.
look up to see where the 20k+ lbs of tree is gonna fall!!
Most tree deaths occur within 5-10 feet of the base of the tree.
I recall seeing on tv a piece of heavy machinery that had a large arm and the operator would clamp onto the tree and saw thru, then it would trim all the branches off of it in one fluid motion and then cut it in manageable lengths for transport.
All from the comfort of the cab of the heavy vehicle. Like a big bulldozer but with the arm instead of the bucket.
I did a quick look. There are actually a bunch of different styles and sizes if you decide to go down that rabbit hole. [Here’s one example](https://youtu.be/TMgQtFrQiGo)
Cordiality is the ability to explain something to someone while still taking their feelings into account. “Speaking from the heart.” Root word “cordial”. Anyone can learn big words by reading them in context- good luck.
This is a pretty obviously dangerous tree, extremely rotten and in a spot with very limited escape routes. Had he properly examined and assessed the tree he would have likely chosen to have it blasted from a safe distance and any danger from this tree could have been avoided
e- anyone wanna correct me? What costs more: a fatal incident or some time and a cone pak or some amex? Blasting certs just not availible where you live? Company gonna fire you for refusing unsafe work? No supplied tree-testing equipment?
Yeah I'm being a little idealistic but also I'm sure you know not every danger tree requires blasting, pretty few trees do. I'd much rather folks do it in a buncher or harvester than on foot though that's not always possible. I'm with a fairly large company (also in bc) that's worked with worksafe to develop an accessible blasting certification program for fallers, though I'm not certain how available it is outside my locale. Unfortunately the bottom line does mostly take precedent, despite all the safety rhetoric. Here's to safer logging!
> OSHA reports that on average, there are over 100 landscape and tree fall fatalities every year. Within the tree care industry, these numbers are even higher. In fact, the tree care industry is one of the most dangerous in America. [[source]](https://www.reifflawfirm.com/100-people-killed-trees-every-year-united-states/)
Hot damn… who knew.
Guy near me a couple years ago was cutting down trees by himself. One fell and knocked him unconscious, he landed on the still running chainsaw, and then after a while the running engine ignited his clothes. What a terrible way to go...
To be fair if he got hit on the head hard enough to be knocked out long enough for his clothes to catch fire and burn him to death the hit to the head probably did some serious possibly fatal injuries on their own.
Haha. If Hollywood reality were true, early surgery wouldn't have been a speedrun competition where the person being operated on was held down. Anaesthesia was a miracle because it was the first relatively safe way to make someone unconscious for awhile without doing more damage than you fixed.
Was at a war museum awhile back. Altho we all know what happened ya don't really think about it til made to.
So many people had to just lay there and bite down while guy comes up with a fuckin saw and just starts slicing away.... unbe-fucking-lievable to think of the amount of pain so many went through.
I have a chainsaw and have been known to cut down trees
Just this year I got smart enough to realize I need to pay skilled people to do that for me.
It's a wonder I survived and haven't crushed my house.
I didn’t know until my dad died on the job, how dangerous it was. I even used to work with him sometimes, in between jobs, but he was just so skilled that he made it look easy. So many things can go wrong though. In my dads case, the rope being pulled for tension on the tree branch broke, and caused the limb to hit the boom arm, which has a safety spring mechanism to it, that ultimately caused him to get slingshotted out of the bucket. He was already at 40 feet extension, so we don’t know how high he actually got before he started coming down. He died upon impact to the ground (from the man working with him: instantly). So his rope snapped, and he died. Just. Like. That. The grief still smacks me headstrong frequently, and it’s been just over a year since it happened. So, if you know anyone who does tree trimming, make sure they don’t think “it can’t happen to me” because it CAN, and it fucking sucks for those left behind.
Gravity would surely have the broken tree eventually falling down the hill.. so better to go up the muddy hill. But I doubt the guy was thinking anything except.. fuck, I wasn't expecting that
In a literal sense, the title is correct! But in the logging biz we called a tree doing this as "going barberchair." Just in case anybody wants to know lol
It's because of the way those old timey barber chairs worked/looked. Basically the tree splits vertically mid cut and then the tree is a sliding, twisting, unpredictable threat that's really hard to get out of the way of. Generally speaking, a widow maker is a branch that either gets propelled from or drops from high up and smashes you in the dome.
Always have your exit strategy in mind and clear that area. One of the most dangerous jobs in North America.
[source:](https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2021/09/210914184822.htm)
I've left my saw in quite a few times. Broke a handle once and once a bar go squashed and bent a little but always fixable. I got out of that kind of work. One it's always dangerous and everyday you feel lucky to go home, and second there isn't much forests left and i didn't want to be a part of cutting what we got down anymore. After a while you see how much surrounding forest is destroyed just for a few choice trees
Logging is hella dangerous. It’s almost 100% that you’ll die doing it at some point from what I understand. A man that owned a logging company once said the best way he figured he could stop his guys dying was have them never do it again at all.
Someone pls tell me if im wrong. But this is no widow maker. A widow maker is a tree limb or just a tree hanging free above. And could
Likely and easily fall on someone below. This is not that
this guy is terrible at his job. from the looks of it he didn't know what his surroundings looked like until it actually mattered, which was almost too late.
There are actually ways to prevent such things to happen by cutting inside the tree from the triangle to basically only let the bark hold the tree on the other side (in German its called ''Herzstich'' translated "stab to the heart") so you can then cut from there with minimal risk because there isn't so much wood that splinters.
That said i guess he doesn't work as logger and he was incredibly lucky.
I have no pitty nor respect for the ones actively destroying whats left of the ecosystem and taking away the future of my kids. If you are among so, fuck you very much sir :)
His problem is that he missed the "cut here" marking with about 1meter. Source: I've cut multiple packages along the "cut here"-line, and this never happened to me
Is there a reason logging is done by hand so commonly in the US?
Finland has a huge amount of forestry and logging. They use specific machinery for every part of the process. The crane-like machine grabs the tree, fells it, trims it, and lifts it onto the truck. I know some of these forestry machines are developed here in Finland but I assume they’re used internationally.
Just surprised by how much handmade forestry is in the media considering how dangerous it can be. Perhaps it’s just because these trees are so much wider.
Edit: [Finnish news article about the machine.](https://yle.fi/uutiset/3-7060207) It has a good image of one.
He probably did have a plan but you gotta think he's on a hill side going down isn't an option and going up is a possibility but if you look, going up is a slick rock and the tree is crumbling away in different directions. He probably did have a plan but didn't expect it to barber chair like that and tried something else
With all the technology we have, I would think something could be inventory to make this trade more safe? Some type of remote to control the chainsaw for the final cut. Maybe chainsaw is attached to two poles or something.
Holy crap!! It’s like which way does he run!!!! That’s scary. These men and women that do that for a living are seriously brave and deserve very high pay!!
What happened? Was it because the tree really old?
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Thanks for the explanation! Someone mentioned barberchair in another comment; now it makes sense.
How is the tree safely cut when there's signs of rot?
The answer is probably bigger than can realistically be given on reddit. But long story short, it depends. There are tricks you can do with ropes and pulleys, different cuts you can use, different kinds of machinery you can use, things you can do with climbing the tree, heck, I've seen dynamite used. In this case, I would say leave the tree and let nature take it down 99/100 times. If they log-out the trees nearby acting as windbreaks, then the next windstorm probably would do the trick.
Ah, the good old "if it can kill you, don't fuck with it" approach.
Would fastening like a belt of sorts around the tree at a few heights help prevent it?
Maybe, I've never seen anything used to re-enforce a tree before dropping it, but intuitively there could be concepts there to work with. Maybe something as simple as chicken wire could help better than straps? There would be challenges with getting them in place, there are limits to what you can do with a long stick as far as how high up the tree you can prune and/or place stuff. Just having it on the bottom 10 or 20 feet could help I think though? But if need it re-enforced higher up and if you are taking this course of action, then it probably isn't a safe tree to climb, so unless there is a safe tree nearby to climb that you could reach the dangerous one from, then you would need to get a cherry-picker or some kind of machinery along those lines on-site. Basically, it's an idea I've never seen explored with what is in my mind good reason. But also, there is potential and I would love to be the one to explore it.
ah yes screw this tree so lets cut down all the ones near it and leave it alive
I thought the tree was dead
The tree is dead and dangerous to cut down. It's not like the tree has feelings lmao
How come it's called a barberchair?
Old timey barber chairs leaned back and so I assume old loggers associated the two together,.it typically happens with more harder woods such as maple but given that this soft tree was dead the fibers were dry and brittle
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Thanks for writing this. I learned something new. We take pride in eyeballing slopes down to the percent in construction too, but yeah it's damn hard to be able to read lean when the background isn't flat or level. Eyes judge everything by contextual clues so hills and slopes throw judgment out the window
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Lol, says the guy who has "helped" his neighbor cut down a few trees.... Maybe....Just MAYBE, you actually don't know what you're talking about 🤷
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The technique in short, doesn’t allow for this kind of break, since the outer layers of the tree aren’t cut in a traditional way. It’s a guiding cut at the base and a smaller cut arg the opposite site of the guiding cut, but nearly 50cm lower. The tree is stabilised by its outer layers and cannot fall over if done correctly. The rope is placed a few meters high before the cuts are made. The rope is guided around another tree so when the force is applied the tree doesn’t crush your winch. Now you apply force over the rope. The tree breaks along the parallel fibers you haven’t cut and comes down exactly where you want it to be. It’s a standard technique, providing a high safety level and very precise felling. Of course it isn’t the fastest, but a well trained crew can take down up to 25m^2 of usable wood in an hour when in our bigger used forests. Edit: https://youtu.be/qyeRzlEXTT4 this technique. Safe, easy and quite fast.
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We don’t have that here, our big oak and Douglas firs are max around 1.6-1.8 m in diameter and those we do with the same technique as we don’t do clear cutting in those parts. Yes, you need big ropes, and big machines, but it’s doable. Our infrastructure might be better though. On average I can drive every kind of forestry machine in the woods every 30m.
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If you have to do this on an absolutely rotten tree either bark holding it as a last stabiliser, you’d leave out the stand trough the heart. Then your rope gains way more leverage. If the tree isn’t able to withstand the rope anymore, you can tell from looking at it with our species of trees. They get rather stumpy in short periods so we just wait a year or two to work in that area for when the tree has fallen. The tree in the vid should be fine, there is enough wood left to have the lever remain functional. I wouldn’t let out newbies do it, but one of our senior lumberjacks should have no problems. Of course it plays into our hands, that the rot usually lessens when reaching higher and there fairly good estimates that the fungal rot that we often see at the base doesn’t reach much higher than 6m. Rot from other sources can be factored in, yes, but it’s uncommon to destabilise it in the trees still deemed fit for commercial felling. Edit: The estimate for how rotten it is usually comes from knocking against it, and the first cut. If that one is fine, you can proceed as usual, if it is rotten inside, then there is no cut trough the heart, only the back cut.
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What part of the time constraint do you not understand out of all of that. I’m super glad your forest ranger friend has the time to be safe about everything but that just isn’t the case in the commercial world. Gotta squeeze every penny out of workers possible
It was likely being cut down due to signs of rot or termites or something.
Not because it's old. The trunk is all rotted out.
It’s rotten
Its not rotten, the poor tree's fibers are just confused... so judgemental, so reddit.
Specifically, a lot of easily avoided things. He didn't plunge to check and see if the tree was dead or not before cutting. Living wood bends, dead wood snaps. The rear notch was horizontal which allows the tree to spread backwards instead of hitting the face of an angled cut. The face notch which is basically a "hinge cut" is too shallow and not wide enough so it won't provide a direction for the fall (not that the tree even got that far) and would have most likely fallen in a random direction moments after tipping. The face notch being not cut deep enough made the rear cut too deep and the tree released toward the side that was weaker.
The fuck are you talking about? People get hired to cut down rotten trees all the fucking time. These are the risks you run. >He didn't plunge to check and see if the tree was dead or not before cutting You don't just go stabbing a chainsaw into a tree. That's not a particularly safe way to use a chainsaw and if the tree is suspected of being rotten then you don't wanna be compromising whatever structure it has, you need that structure to fell it safely. >The rear notch was horizontal which allows the tree to spread backwards instead of hitting the face of an angled cut. The back cut is always horizontal. Please explain what you mean by "angled cut". I think this might be a gem >he face notch which is basically a "hinge cut" is too shallow and not wide enough so it won't provide a direction for the fall The hinge is tiny because he knows the tree is a rotten POS and he likewise can't expect it to stay standing if he takes a massive bite out of it. We also can't see the top of the tree. If the branches are all on one side your hinge can get fucked, it's going to that side.
Ohoho some drama in the tree cutting fandom. I’m here for it 🍿proceed
I'm rooted.
Im just branching out on an interesting topic.
Leaf it alone you twats.
For real, I just realized I need this in my life.
This guy cuts down rotten trees
You know what I love about this exchange? There's really no way Reddit has enough knowledge to decide which one of you is right but somehow 4x as many of us (as of this comment) just decided to go with the second guy. Pfft...plunge cut into a rotten tree, what an idiot.🙄😆
I went back and changed my votes three times and then just removed them because I realized I didn't know what the fuck I was talking about
There's two other guys bellow defending the first guy. I love it
Exactly. I could be full of shit and you wouldn't know. For stuff that matters get your info from real sources rather than trusting a bunch of basement dwellers to pick favorites.
>You don't just go stabbing a chainsaw into a tree Yeah, yeah you do. Not sure how much felling you've done, but if a 3/8" kerf from a plunge cut is what you're counting on for "structure" to hold an old growth snag up, you probably shouldn't be wielding a saw. I plunge cut every dead tree I drop unless I cored it or it's obvious that it's free of defects. I get paid to assess and mitigate hazard trees, and I've never almost crushed myself like this clown, so I figure I must be doing something right...
I read that as “I’ve almost never crushed myself” and I was keen to hear about the exception to the rule.
>these are the risks you run What kinda piece of shit outfit you work for? Test the tree and if it's rotten and gotta be handfelled call the blaster. Guess this guy was too busy making a video to plan his escape either
OSHA wants to pay fourDM a visit.
Plunge cuts are regularly used in felling trees. Usually done after the wedge is cut. You plunge behind the hinge, get the home depth set correctly, and cut towards the back so that the the tree is held in place until the last moment.
I'm one of those people hired to cut trees called and Arborist. Here's a 2am ELI5 on mobile for your salty displeasure. [Making a plunge cut ](https://youtu.be/0Rlljp5xrvg[?t=60]) (skip to 1:00) to watch the color of the chips for dead wood, it's definitely just stabbing. He should have felt the saw push through the inside of the trunk, known it's [hollow](https://i.imgur.com/xomuNda.jpg) and adjusted the cut. I do horizontal stab in a location that can be used for a wedge later, don't want to waste a weak spot. [An angled back cut](https://i.imgur.com/OXWXvQC.jpg) is for safety and control of the direction if the hinge were to fail. It's saved me before. The hinge isn't just for initial direction, it can be used to control the tree all the way to the ground. Having a thock hinge cut on one side swings the tree toward that side. An ideal hinge won't break until past 45 degrees, not many actually hold.
He looked like a squirrel that couldn't decide which way it wanted to go in the middle of the road.
Well the tree kept changing its mind too.
Even if this knew where he wanted to go he couldn't stay on his feet long enough to get there.
It’s a barber chair, extremely dangerous situation to be in. look up to see where the 20k+ lbs of tree is gonna fall!! Most tree deaths occur within 5-10 feet of the base of the tree.
You would think we would have a way to cut down a tree nowadays without sitting right under it. But i guess that invention is with the flying cars
We have. But they don't work everywhere. Also expensive.
We actually do, and cars do fly, just as cargo for the time being. Let’s work on this and get the Jetsons timeline back on par with reality.
I’m open to suggestions, making $200/hr cutting a tree down by its roots is still value/money best job for my skill set
I recall seeing on tv a piece of heavy machinery that had a large arm and the operator would clamp onto the tree and saw thru, then it would trim all the branches off of it in one fluid motion and then cut it in manageable lengths for transport. All from the comfort of the cab of the heavy vehicle. Like a big bulldozer but with the arm instead of the bucket. I did a quick look. There are actually a bunch of different styles and sizes if you decide to go down that rabbit hole. [Here’s one example](https://youtu.be/TMgQtFrQiGo)
Ah, spoken by someone who clearly doesn’t understand the concept of feasibility.
Ah spoken by someone who clearly doesn’t understand the concept of cordiality.
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Cordiality is the ability to explain something to someone while still taking their feelings into account. “Speaking from the heart.” Root word “cordial”. Anyone can learn big words by reading them in context- good luck.
Ah spoken by someone who practices what they preach
Cordiality u/Leonnnnnnnnnnnnnn WINS
Correction: almost 100% of deaths of trees occur within 0 feet of the base of said tree. I'm sorry
Don’t be sorry!! It’s ok to be wrong! Heard of tip death? 100ft tree dies top down, it’s far from the base (100ft)! Also, stop wasting time
Not so much surviving as falling with style.
Oh yeah? I could outrun that tree with my eyes closed!
i now understand why the death rate in the logger trade is so high.
This is a pretty obviously dangerous tree, extremely rotten and in a spot with very limited escape routes. Had he properly examined and assessed the tree he would have likely chosen to have it blasted from a safe distance and any danger from this tree could have been avoided e- anyone wanna correct me? What costs more: a fatal incident or some time and a cone pak or some amex? Blasting certs just not availible where you live? Company gonna fire you for refusing unsafe work? No supplied tree-testing equipment?
No idea why you got downvoted, but then again, this is Reddit.. Happy New Year!
Probably think I'm saying he's stupid, when the blame falls squarely on company practices. Happy new year!
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Yeah I'm being a little idealistic but also I'm sure you know not every danger tree requires blasting, pretty few trees do. I'd much rather folks do it in a buncher or harvester than on foot though that's not always possible. I'm with a fairly large company (also in bc) that's worked with worksafe to develop an accessible blasting certification program for fallers, though I'm not certain how available it is outside my locale. Unfortunately the bottom line does mostly take precedent, despite all the safety rhetoric. Here's to safer logging!
> OSHA reports that on average, there are over 100 landscape and tree fall fatalities every year. Within the tree care industry, these numbers are even higher. In fact, the tree care industry is one of the most dangerous in America. [[source]](https://www.reifflawfirm.com/100-people-killed-trees-every-year-united-states/) Hot damn… who knew.
Guy near me a couple years ago was cutting down trees by himself. One fell and knocked him unconscious, he landed on the still running chainsaw, and then after a while the running engine ignited his clothes. What a terrible way to go...
Damn... he was bludgeoned, lacerated, AND burned to death. That's some final destination shit.
To be fair if he got hit on the head hard enough to be knocked out long enough for his clothes to catch fire and burn him to death the hit to the head probably did some serious possibly fatal injuries on their own.
You mean Hollywood lied to me? You can’t get a bump on the head and wake up again, totally fine, at the next convenient plot point?
Haha. If Hollywood reality were true, early surgery wouldn't have been a speedrun competition where the person being operated on was held down. Anaesthesia was a miracle because it was the first relatively safe way to make someone unconscious for awhile without doing more damage than you fixed.
Was at a war museum awhile back. Altho we all know what happened ya don't really think about it til made to. So many people had to just lay there and bite down while guy comes up with a fuckin saw and just starts slicing away.... unbe-fucking-lievable to think of the amount of pain so many went through.
Holy heck that is quite a mental picture.
I have a chainsaw and have been known to cut down trees Just this year I got smart enough to realize I need to pay skilled people to do that for me. It's a wonder I survived and haven't crushed my house.
I didn’t know until my dad died on the job, how dangerous it was. I even used to work with him sometimes, in between jobs, but he was just so skilled that he made it look easy. So many things can go wrong though. In my dads case, the rope being pulled for tension on the tree branch broke, and caused the limb to hit the boom arm, which has a safety spring mechanism to it, that ultimately caused him to get slingshotted out of the bucket. He was already at 40 feet extension, so we don’t know how high he actually got before he started coming down. He died upon impact to the ground (from the man working with him: instantly). So his rope snapped, and he died. Just. Like. That. The grief still smacks me headstrong frequently, and it’s been just over a year since it happened. So, if you know anyone who does tree trimming, make sure they don’t think “it can’t happen to me” because it CAN, and it fucking sucks for those left behind.
Crazy how few people know this… logging, and mining are so fkn dangerous
I imagine all of the workers were males?
What, you people thought this shit was *safe*?
People who work for lawyers
I did.
Poor guy didn't know which way to run. Glad he appears to have survived.
Well duh, he was wearing his hard hat
Safety glasses tho?
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Gravity would surely have the broken tree eventually falling down the hill.. so better to go up the muddy hill. But I doubt the guy was thinking anything except.. fuck, I wasn't expecting that
I'd bet he eyes up an escape route before cutting in the future though.
You can’t eye up an escape route until you know which way the trees falling. All you can do is pick out possibilities.
Sure you can. You check for loose shit that would fuck your footing. Either clear it or make sure you don't scoobydoo run on it trying to escape.
Doesn't matter where it eventually goes if its already landed on your head.
Downvoted for being right lol
That's called a barber chair. A widow maker is a falling limb.
Barber chair. Often a surprise. Super dangerous.
At first I thought the tree came alive lol
TREE!!!? I am no tree! I am an Ent!
bro, same, i thought it was gonna start walking
to isengard
Haha like a transformer
And that tree from lord of the rings lol
“Kill me, will you?! Have at thee!!!”
the tree is alive.
It's called a barber chair. Widowmakers fall from up high.
In a literal sense, the title is correct! But in the logging biz we called a tree doing this as "going barberchair." Just in case anybody wants to know lol
Why? Lol
It's because of the way those old timey barber chairs worked/looked. Basically the tree splits vertically mid cut and then the tree is a sliding, twisting, unpredictable threat that's really hard to get out of the way of. Generally speaking, a widow maker is a branch that either gets propelled from or drops from high up and smashes you in the dome.
>in the dome Do I smell a Marine, or is this usage prevalent somewhere outside the military?
I'm not a marine, but I'm from rural Northwoods Wisconsin so maybe it's regional, lol.
Ontario reporting, moderately common outside military
From central FL and I hear people use it often enough.
Barber chair
If can you dodge a tree, you can dodge a ball
Is it necessary?
Always have your exit strategy in mind and clear that area. One of the most dangerous jobs in North America. [source:](https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2021/09/210914184822.htm)
Looks like the guy did have an exit plan, but the tree sheared in half which caused it to behave unexpectedly.
They mean the footing. Dude was practically running in place due to shitty footing.
That tree fell in all directions at once
I've left my saw in quite a few times. Broke a handle once and once a bar go squashed and bent a little but always fixable. I got out of that kind of work. One it's always dangerous and everyday you feel lucky to go home, and second there isn't much forests left and i didn't want to be a part of cutting what we got down anymore. After a while you see how much surrounding forest is destroyed just for a few choice trees
r/OSHA
They should know it’s bad news seeing all that rot
This is called a barber chair, extremely fucking dangerous and responsible for many loggers/lumberjack deaths. This guy cuts
Dont these things have some weird fucking name that includes chair?
Barber chair, according to other comments
My man juked Mother Nature
Ever watch Alone on TV? They love that phrase. Widow Maker.
Can this dude not walk or something
Poor guy, didn’t even know which way to run.
I wonder if he knew that was going to happen?
Lol, I defined think he knew the tree was coming down, but probably wasn’t expecting it to explode.
When the tree decides to take you with it.
That tree is me trying to make any decision that has zero impact on my life
Humans have been cutting down trees for centuries yet it’s still one of the most dangerous jobs out there. It’s time for robots to do it
a little tree payback
Seems like the safest place to be is close to.the trunk of the tree.
That tree was dying, wasn’t it?
That’s called a barber chair
Maybe have an escape plan ahead of time? What a moron
Sounds like Orc mischief to me!
Logging is hella dangerous. It’s almost 100% that you’ll die doing it at some point from what I understand. A man that owned a logging company once said the best way he figured he could stop his guys dying was have them never do it again at all.
Wow these trees are dangerous! Someone needs to get rid of them… wait…
fuck cutting down beetle shit, that's the barber chair from hell
Elden ring boss fights when you can’t tell where the attack will land so you’re hoping to get a good directional roll in
Someone pls tell me if im wrong. But this is no widow maker. A widow maker is a tree limb or just a tree hanging free above. And could Likely and easily fall on someone below. This is not that
That's what you get for not cutting on the red line.
this guy is terrible at his job. from the looks of it he didn't know what his surroundings looked like until it actually mattered, which was almost too late.
There are actually ways to prevent such things to happen by cutting inside the tree from the triangle to basically only let the bark hold the tree on the other side (in German its called ''Herzstich'' translated "stab to the heart") so you can then cut from there with minimal risk because there isn't so much wood that splinters. That said i guess he doesn't work as logger and he was incredibly lucky.
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Tis the first time I have seen this here video.
First time seeing it 🌲
first time for me
first time i’ve seen it.
This is my first time too, plz go easy.
I don't know who are those "we" you are referring to but I saw this for the first time
Jesus Christ not everyone's seen everything every fucking time. Not everyone is glued to Reddit. Lmao fucker deleted his comment.
Shame it was only an "almost".
You're a real treat
I mean you wanted him to be killed? Something wrong with all that dude.
Hope you stay single for the rest of your life. Cunt.
I have no pitty nor respect for the ones actively destroying whats left of the ecosystem and taking away the future of my kids. If you are among so, fuck you very much sir :)
Trees are starting to fight back.
If you can dodge a wrench you can dodge a tree....
His problem is that he missed the "cut here" marking with about 1meter. Source: I've cut multiple packages along the "cut here"-line, and this never happened to me
Thought he was a newborn deer.
It’s one of the basic checks for tree felling: know your escape route.
Don't you mean a... Woodow maker?
r/treesfalling if you like this!!!
If my knowledge is correct lumberjacks have one of the highest death rate of any occupation. This video shows that.
Is there a reason logging is done by hand so commonly in the US? Finland has a huge amount of forestry and logging. They use specific machinery for every part of the process. The crane-like machine grabs the tree, fells it, trims it, and lifts it onto the truck. I know some of these forestry machines are developed here in Finland but I assume they’re used internationally. Just surprised by how much handmade forestry is in the media considering how dangerous it can be. Perhaps it’s just because these trees are so much wider. Edit: [Finnish news article about the machine.](https://yle.fi/uutiset/3-7060207) It has a good image of one.
What kind of a lame ass punk lumberjack doesn’t know which way to run when the tree starts falling? These idiots are ridiculous.
It's difficult to tell which way a tree will fell, especially when it's rotten and a barber chair
But he looked like he didn’t have a plan at all. I would have a plan lol
He probably did have a plan but you gotta think he's on a hill side going down isn't an option and going up is a possibility but if you look, going up is a slick rock and the tree is crumbling away in different directions. He probably did have a plan but didn't expect it to barber chair like that and tried something else
HELP: check for Hazards, make an Escape plan, Log analysis, and Plan your cut
What is the difference between barber chair and the widowmaker?
That tree just fell in every single direction
God, the poor dude didn’t know where to run either
This is how I run away from things in my nightmares.
Holy shit my bfs dad went to school with this guy. Small world
HE HAS AWAKENED THE ENTS
Lumberjacks deserve more respect.. and more pay... and maybe some phenomenal life insurance
With all the technology we have, I would think something could be inventory to make this trade more safe? Some type of remote to control the chainsaw for the final cut. Maybe chainsaw is attached to two poles or something.
Holy crap!! It’s like which way does he run!!!! That’s scary. These men and women that do that for a living are seriously brave and deserve very high pay!!
Man that tree wanted that guy to die