Close call with tractor winch

[shinnlinger]

Posting so maybe one of you will read this and think about it more than I did.    Today I winched on a top that had blown off and stuck in the ground.   It was darn near vertical but leaning away from me.  I put the choker low thinking I could easily just pull the base toward me.  Well that’s a not what happened.   I broke one of my smaller chain chokers so I put a heavier chain on and revved it up.   What happened instead of the base popping out is it actually pulled the top of the tree right towards me. because the choker was so low it mousetrapped and whipped right at me.   Fortunately I was just far enough away that no damage was done, but I was barely out of the way.   It happened so quickly I’m pretty sure I would not have gotten out of the way.     Just a reminder to be careful out there.

[thecfarm]

I can understand how that can happen. 
As you know now, cut it down the way you would a tree.

[Southside]

For others who have never experienced this it is definitely not an anomaly, they will do that often in the situation you described. Glad you were far enough away.  

The other danger is that tree throwing a widow maker out of another one on the way down. 

[g_man]

Glad it was just a close call !!  Same type thing can happen if you are winching in a log and it hits a dead or small tree near your tractor. Tree can come at you quicker than you can move. Or if you are skidding some logs out and one of the logs catches a tree on the side of the trail. You won't see it coming as it whips down onto you from behind. There are a lot of ways to get hurt so work safe and keep your mind on what you are doing.

gg

[BargeMonkey]

I've been in the woods since I was 12, the other day was the first time I've ever gotten hit BAD, it's just a matter of time on WHEN things happen. Theres been 3 people killed here in the last while in logging accidents, 2 involved no ROPS, 1 guys was on a farm tractor and as the hitch bound turning a corner it caught another tree, smeared him across the steering wheel. Tractor kept going. 

[Southside]

Similar thing happened a couple years back, a few miles down the road, Kubota compact tractor, open station, ROPS folded down.  Guy was pulling on a standing pine he was felling and it came down onto him, pinned him to the steering wheel.  His son found him, the ambulance came but it was just to make the family feel better.  

Had a 6" poplar break off today while I was in the buncher, never knew until it hit the cab, and rolled off onto the tires.  Just looked at it and kept on working, never run anything in the woods without FOPS and ROPS protection.  

Hope you heal up soon Barge.  I caught a widow maker a number of years back that collapsed the suspension and cracked my helmet, got a nasty concussion for a month out of it.  Was only a 2" diameter, dead, pine branch, from at most 15'-20' up.  Doesn't take much.

[nativewolf]

Similar thing happened a couple years back, a few miles down the road, Kubota compact tractor, open station, ROPS folded down.  Guy was pulling on a standing pine he was felling and it came down onto him, pinned him to the steering wheel.  His son found him, the ambulance came but it was just to make the family feel better.  

Had a 6" poplar break off today while I was in the buncher, never knew until it hit the cab, and rolled off onto the tires.  Just looked at it and kept on working, never run anything in the woods without FOPS and ROPS protection.  

Hope you heal up soon Barge.  I caught a widow maker a number of years back that collapsed the suspension and cracked my helmet, got a nasty concussion for a month out of it.  Was only a 2" diameter, dead, pine branch, from at most 15'-20' up.  Doesn't take much.

Right you are, took a dead ash limb on our fancy helmets this summer.  Dropped me to the ground but just a bit stunned. 

[Old Greenhorn]

Funny thing about this is that it strikes one with a more serious and immediate concern when one is experienced. Meaning that an inexperienced person might say "well who would have though that would happen, freak accident nobody could predict" and an experienced person would say "Holy cow, what was I thinking, that was really stupid and I got lucky, I had better step it up a notch and pay attention, I am getting sloppy". I know when I get whacked if I didn't see it coming I had better stop right there and figure out what I missed and how I could have missed it. I have a serious talk with myself and I am in a pith poor mood the rest of the day giving myself grief. I feel like a failure.
 Barge's story is a case in point, all those years in the woods, yet he still gets whacked, you can't let your guard down and even good folk catch an odd flip once in a while, no matter how careful they are. Heal up buddy, I hope you are OK.
 30 years ago I flipped a tractor backwards on myself. All alone, no help, gas running all over me, I can't shut it off, and trying to get myself out was a wake up call. I had not thought about how high the pick point was on the tractor (just a few inches over the axle) and was trying to roll a log. Physics won out. (Spoiler alert, I survived.)
 A year ago I dropped a dead tree, it went as planned, no magic, but the top caught a branch on another tree, snapped off and came straight back at me. There was NO time to move and part of it landed at my feet, the other part went over my head. I broke out in a cold sweat. 
 I could go on, but the point is you can never leave your guard down, never turn your back, and never forget to calculate the physics. Glad everybody here is ok. Concerned about Barge, knowing him, when he says he got hit 'bad' that is likely something that would have killed me. Just how 'bad' is 'bad' Barge?

[BargeMonkey]

 I'm usually real cautious but again it can happen to any of us. I got DROPPED Tom, skidder operator watched it happen. The top was ice damaged and kind of dead, I got the little limb, the other piece that fell 10' away would have been the end. I walked it off and didnt realize I was truly messed up till I got home and laid down, I've been in quite a few fist fights but this was the first time my face had ever felt "broken", the blonde nurse came the next morning and checked me out still seeing stars 🤣, I had put the forester off 1x already so 🤷‍♂️ back to work. I see these idiots on FB without chaps and a hardhat, trucks loaded 4' above the stakes and it irritates me because it's not just them they are affecting, the people who have to come pick up a corpse are also impacted. Some of you here may have heard the name Jake Larosa, another logger here killed a few yrs ago in a freak accident with a farm tractor trying to help out someone who got stuck, just a horrible thing and it happens quick. 

[Old Greenhorn]

Man, that concerns me, still wonky the next day ain't good. I have seen that in a lot of my car accident patients, but I think you got hit by a small truck. If that persists, you really should get your butt in to be checked out with some x-rays, scans, or whatever. I have friends that let stuff like that go and well.... I won't bore you with the details but one guy bruised his leg getting out of a loader and a month later he is in the ER with blood clots, almost didn't make it. Messed him up for 6 months. Take care of yourself, you are still young and every old guy here will tell you that they could have been a little (ok, a lot) smarter when they were younger.
 I too was (am) a 'walk it off, take it easy for a day or two' guy and I wish I was a little smarter than that. Take care man.

[BargeMonkey]

 Im good now Tom 👍 I got hurt the next parcel over years ago taking down a wooden tree stand for a DEP clean up job, came into the gravel pit covered in blood, 15 staples later, and I was due back on the boat in 3 days, I call the 2nd mate up, doing our 4wk flip for the holidays, "you cool with taking staples out" ? leaned over the capstan with pliers out of the engine room going across the gulf headed to Puerto Rico. Deckhand got 1/2 way thru it being an assistant and he couldn't take it 🤣  "You may die today but DONT be a b/#$h about it". 

[mike_belben]

I have 2 large snapped off oaks laying on a rolling high ground, parallel and about 10 feet apart.  one old and one fresh, the new one pinning a small white oak also parrallel.  So 3 trees laying like a buncher set them, brush 10ft off the ground, tangled into a clump of 1-3" regen sapplings and all blocking up visibility for a prime bow shot over a little water hole, that i intend to clear out ahead of the next cold front.


About 2 hours of trampling around mulching this stuff down with the tophandle before i could hope to extract the firewood... had my helmet on, shield and muffs down, boots pants gloves all that.. More than my usual flip flips right.. Im safe.. 

     *WHAP*


Any itty bitty springy little switch tip came up inside my face shield and slapped my cheek/lip so flippin hard i screamed like a bunny in a coyotes mouth.  Just one of those things.. By the grace of God it wasnt my eye.   Everything is out to get ya once you put them boots on.  

[kantuckid]

Great lessons to take in above. I find that in the woods, in spite of the physics and what experiences have taught us the number of variables is so many and spread all around, they can bite us. 
I have a yellow poplar that died on one side a few years back. It's a twin and nice tree on both sides and close to my woods road.
 When I first sized it up it had a serious size widow maker lodged up high and made me cringe, so I left it. Now the barks coming off and the dangers still up there two years later. I talk to myself saying you did the right thing but I also have my share of close calls. 
Last week I cut a fairly large pine on edge of my pastures lower slope. With logs pulled out of the way I am pushing down the tops of it and another one down the slope into the woods with tractor and forks as my pusher. As I'm backing uphill the tractor rear wheel rides up onto a spike branch that's speared into the soil and sticking out of the ground maybe 18". I thought we'd thrown all the trims into the woods as they do puncture tires. I nearly turned over- at least it felt like it!- the tractor as my helper yells when he sees me going up on it. 
I could tell many more as can others, but I'll spare you. 
I'll use motorcycles as an e.g., even though I've ridden for many years, I still have this little serious talk to myself event when I pull that helmet on.
 Guess what, like Murphy's Law, xhit still happens. 

[Wudman]

Funny thing about this is that it strikes one with a more serious and immediate concern when one is experienced. Meaning that an inexperienced person might say "well who would have though that would happen, freak accident nobody could predict" and an experienced person would say "Holy cow, what was I thinking, that was really stupid and I got lucky, I had better step it up a notch and pay attention, I am getting sloppy". I know when I get whacked if I didn't see it coming I had better stop right there and figure out what I missed and how I could have missed it. I have a serious talk with myself and I am in a pith poor mood the rest of the day giving myself grief. I feel like a failure.
 Barge's story is a case in point, all those years in the woods, yet he still gets whacked, you can't let your guard down and even good folk catch an odd flip once in a while, no matter how careful they are. Heal up buddy, I hope you are OK.
 30 years ago I flipped a tractor backwards on myself. All alone, no help, gas running all over me, I can't shut it off, and trying to get myself out was a wake up call. I had not thought about how high the pick point was on the tractor (just a few inches over the axle) and was trying to roll a log. Physics won out. (Spoiler alert, I survived.)
 A year ago I dropped a dead tree, it went as planned, no magic, but the top caught a branch on another tree, snapped off and came straight back at me. There was NO time to move and part of it landed at my feet, the other part went over my head. I broke out in a cold sweat.
 I could go on, but the point is you can never leave your guard down, never turn your back, and never forget to calculate the physics. Glad everybody here is ok. Concerned about Barge, knowing him, when he says he got hit 'bad' that is likely something that would have killed me. Just how 'bad' is 'bad' Barge?

One of our commercial logging insurance companies here in Virginia provides quarterly safety briefs to their insured.  I set in on meetings from time to time.  This particular company had 4 fatalities in the last 3 years.  The average age of those killed was 63.  It's not the young guys that are getting hurt.  More often than not, it is the employee with 20+ years of experience.  Inattention, a brain fart, or some other slip up costs a life.
My pet peeve on logging jobs is a truck driver walking between his truck and a log pile.  I speak up every time I see it.  Pull that truck out of the hole before you get out to bind the load.  I was on a job the other day and a log rolled down the pile and dinged a saddle tank on the truck.  The rear axle took most of the impact, so there was not major damage, but it would have crushed a man.  The driver was sitting in the cab at the time.  He was one that I had cautioned before.  He pulled out of the hole and came to me.  "I see what you mean now".  Stay safe out there.
Wudman    

[nativewolf]

Funny thing about this is that it strikes one with a more serious and immediate concern when one is experienced. Meaning that an inexperienced person might say "well who would have though that would happen, freak accident nobody could predict" and an experienced person would say "Holy cow, what was I thinking, that was really stupid and I got lucky, I had better step it up a notch and pay attention, I am getting sloppy". I know when I get whacked if I didn't see it coming I had better stop right there and figure out what I missed and how I could have missed it. I have a serious talk with myself and I am in a pith poor mood the rest of the day giving myself grief. I feel like a failure.
 Barge's story is a case in point, all those years in the woods, yet he still gets whacked, you can't let your guard down and even good folk catch an odd flip once in a while, no matter how careful they are. Heal up buddy, I hope you are OK.
 30 years ago I flipped a tractor backwards on myself. All alone, no help, gas running all over me, I can't shut it off, and trying to get myself out was a wake up call. I had not thought about how high the pick point was on the tractor (just a few inches over the axle) and was trying to roll a log. Physics won out. (Spoiler alert, I survived.)
 A year ago I dropped a dead tree, it went as planned, no magic, but the top caught a branch on another tree, snapped off and came straight back at me. There was NO time to move and part of it landed at my feet, the other part went over my head. I broke out in a cold sweat.
 I could go on, but the point is you can never leave your guard down, never turn your back, and never forget to calculate the physics. Glad everybody here is ok. Concerned about Barge, knowing him, when he says he got hit 'bad' that is likely something that would have killed me. Just how 'bad' is 'bad' Barge?

One of our commercial logging insurance companies here in Virginia provides quarterly safety briefs to their insured.  I set in on meetings from time to time.  This particular company had 4 fatalities in the last 3 years.  The average age of those killed was 63.  It's not the young guys that are getting hurt.  More often than not, it is the employee with 20+ years of experience.  Inattention, a brain fart, or some other slip up costs a life.
My pet peeve on logging jobs is a truck driver walking between his truck and a log pile.  I speak up every time I see it.  Pull that truck out of the hole before you get out to bind the load.  I was on a job the other day and a log rolled down the pile and dinged a saddle tank on the truck.  The rear axle took most of the impact, so there was not major damage, but it would have crushed a man.  The driver was sitting in the cab at the time.  He was one that I had cautioned before.  He pulled out of the hole and came to me.  "I see what you mean now".  Stay safe out there.
Wudman    

Good advice there!

[mudfarmer]

Paper physics and real physics are often hard to mesh. You can stand in the woods drawing free body diagrams all day and still get it wrong. Stay safe out there, too many variables to account for..

Jeez just look at all the “Related posts” at the bottom that FF links to this close call post. That could be any of us any day. Live to log another day