Accident Briefs for January 2022
Minor injuries suspected when aerial lift tips An aerial lift being used for line-clearance tree trimming tipped over January 6, 2022, on the shoulder of a road in Hayden, Idaho, taking down power lines and causing a power outage to about 200 homes. It is presumed the operator sustained at least minor injuries crashing into […]
Tree Worker Safety Update By the Numbers: Another Us vs. Them
Another year, and arboricultural operations are still among the leading industrial activities for fatal and nonfatal injuries. Compared to all industries, tree workers have at least 15 times the fatality rate (Bureau of Labor Statistics 2020a) and three times the nonfatal rate (BLS 2018). You might take some comfort in the nonfatal rate being “only” […]
Accident Briefs for November 2021
The first item describes an incident that was not reported in TCI Magazine’s “Accident Briefs” when it occurred in 2020. Two injured when rope feeds into chipper Two tree workers were injured when a climbing or rigging rope was accidentally fed into a chipper during or prior to November 2020 in Easton, Maryland. A man […]
No Excuses! Most Compact-Lift Failures Are Preventable
The experts – those who make and sell compact lifts and, ultimately, have to do a lot of the repairs – say causes of the majority of compact-lift “fails,” as the slang goes, boil down to one of two things: operator error or lack of maintenance. With respect to operator error, Mike Hrycak, president of […]
Crane Safety: Electrifying Hazards
Crane-safety experts’ observations about the hazards of power lines, taking safety precautions and the need for training Working on trees around power lines can be a killer – literally. But in tree work involving cranes, added danger often comes from another area: complacency. “The biggest thing we come across is complacency in terms of pre-op […]