Tree work is dangerous

[Kevin]

This was good for a broken leg.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RUIGBS7B7WY

[fishpharmer]

Ouch!!

That you Kevin?

[Jeff]

No, that's not Kevin.    Didn't you guys get a chance to meet at the pig roast?

That feller seems to have had a premonition that there were a lot of things that were apt to go wrong there.

[fishpharmer]

Apparentely not in a Bleue influenced state of mind. :

[SwampDonkey]

I didn't get much of a chance to talk neither, and I never had any influence of Bleue.  :D

[Raider Bill]

That's ugly!

[Dan_Shade]

ouch, it pays to always think things through.

[Jeff]

It was almost like that tree said, "Okay buddy, take this!"

[Kevin]

Everyone starting out is going to experience a limb tipping sooner or later.
I think you have to experience it to appreciate it and once it happens you don't forget it but hopefully it's a close call and not what happened to this guy.
The limb was rigged wrong, cut wrong and the guy had no safety line or equipment.
It usually takes a series of things for an accident to happen and this is proof of that.
It's good that it was captured by the camera so someone else might learn from it.

[Ron Scott]

A good reminder! 

[crtreedude]

You know, at the beginning of this I was saying in my mind at least three times "no, don't do that!!". Too high on the ladder, too unstable and then when he started to cut, I just knew what would happen next.

I guess when you have dropped thousands of trees you sort of get an instinct that screams out at you...  :-\

[Kevin]

I agree, instinct because you have seen or had experienced it before and your gut feeling telling you to do something different.

[blaze83]

DanG DanG DanG   makes me want tob be more careful the next time i saw something that is for sure..OUCH

[Burlkraft]

Did ya notice that that Stihl saw was still runnin'?  ;D

[Raider Bill]

Let me ask this.... What caused that limb to tip back like that wind?

[beenthere]

Let me ask this.... What caused that limb to tip back like that wind?

Gravity.

But where it was tied off wrong left it nowhere else to go, but kick back in his direction.

I also think, like the water wands, that the limb will kick back to wherever your ladder is placed.

I'm curious, who reset the video camera to a different recording position or zoom setting? The victim? And how did this guy get out of the tree? maybe the same way the saw made it to the ground?  Ouch!!

[Ianab]

Let me ask this.... What caused that limb to tip back like that wind?

His own rope that he had rigged to try an control the fall. Once he cut through the limb he was left with a pendulum, a heavy one, swinging towards him.  :-\

Any video that starts with someone climbing a ladder with a chainsaw is pretty much certain to end badly.....

Ian

[SwampDonkey]

My uncle was about to saw limbs from a  ladder until I pointed out that the limb was short and heavy and would likely swing under the rest of the limb on hinge wood that he was cutting it from and knock him and saw to the ground. So he listened to his nephew after I showed him what he was setting himself up for.

[Warbird]

Oh man oh man oh man.  Why was he cutting like that?  I'm not a professional like a lot of you guys but you still wouldn't have caught me doing that.

[Kevin]

Bill, his rope was too low on the branch, it should have been way up closer to the tip.
That branch is top heavy and wants to swing the butt upwards to reach a balancing point.
It started it's swing and was stopped by his leg and the tree.
You can see later on in the video where the butt is way up in the air resting at balance.
If he had a little more experience he would have seen it coming.

One other problem was where he tied the rope to the tree, it's causing the branch to swing back towards him.

[doctorb]

If your interested, that long cut on his leg was not for the insertion of hardware to stabilize the fracture.  That wound is called a fasciotomy (meaning to cut the fascia, which is the strong fibrous covering of the muscles) and that part of his operation was performed to release pressure within his leg.  Did you see the little shiny skin staples on the very small wounds down by his ankle?  Those small wounds are used to insert screws through the bone to interlock with a rod (also called nail) that was placed down the marrow cavity of his tibia.  So this guy initially had a cleanout of the open fracture of his tibia, followed by an interlocking nailing of the tibia.  Too much pressure developed within the calf, which can shut down the blood flow to the tissues, so a fasciotomy was performed to release the tissue pressure (The development of too much pressure within the soft tissues that threatens blood supply is called a compartment syndrome - which is what he had!).  The calf swells like crazy, and the fasciotomy wound is left open with a VAC dressing, that black sponge you see.  The swelling is great enough that you couldn't close this fasciotomy wound with a winch.  After the second operation, days later when the swelling has subsided, they were able to close the wound with all those sutures.

Note the two different configuations of sutures.  The very wide (large bites of tissue)sutures on his calf are called retention sutures.  These are used to pull together tissue that can't easily be approximated and sewn with usual techniques, due to swelling.  These large sutures are placed first, to yank the wound back together and counteract the tension withn the tissues when skin closure is attempted, and then the rest of the smaller sutures are placed to close the wound itself.  Actually, I've never seen this before. :D  Just kiddin'

[Raider Bill]

I missed the rope first time around. Makes sense the way you guys explained it.

Doc B, Brother some of your posts make me cringe.  That's some graffic stuff there. smiley_alcoholic_01 ;D ;D
Pretty interesting though............

The link is missing on my screen?

[doctorb]

Bill
I actually hesitated before being so graphic, but the FF crowd seems to like to know details.  They are an exacting group.  I didn't post it to make those with gentler stomachs a little queasy, but that guy's leg represents about 25 years of my ortho trauma experience, and I couldn't help myself. I hope some find it enlightening, and the others find forgiveness.      Doctorb

[metalspinner]

Did you see the little shiny skin staples on the very small wounds down by his ankle?

I had my eyes closed for most of the video.

[Mooseherder]

I stopped watching after the pinch.