The fall protection the climber on the left is wearing is a climbing saddle with an attached upper-body harness; the lift operator on the right has a full-body harness. Both are compliant for their respective applications. Photos courtesy of SavATree. [...]

Personal protective equipment, or PPE, is what you need when everything else has gone wrong. You don’t need a helmet until your head has been impacted by an outside force, usually a branch stub. You don’t need cut-resistant leg protection [...]

Cameron Martins, a climber and equipment operator with Stanley Tree Service, Inc., a dual-accredited, 32-year TCIA member company in Smithfield, Rhode Island, sporting his Pit Viper, Z87-rated eye protection on the job. Photo courtesy of Stanley Tree Service, Inc. Bruce [...]

An arborist aloft is using a sharp hand saw to remove small branches. The saw slips during a cut and inadvertently cuts the arborist’s forearm. The wound is deep and renders the arborist disabled, but conscious. TCIA staff photos. As [...]

All photos courtesy of the author. A few years back, not far removed from my first stay at a mental-health facility, I found myself chanting these words – “roots in ground, body in trunk, spirit in sky” – over and [...]