Anyone Ever Been Bit?

Worst ever was in 2001, was on a memorial weekend campout. 8 cold beers into sun afternoon we decided to drop a dead pine for more camp wood, i made the back cut tree fell right where i wanted it. As i stood there being cool the slowly rotating chain took a bite outa my left thigh. Was wearing double knee carharts so only needed a bandaid. Dont run saws after having beers or whiskey its only begging for trouble.

 

I have a few bad habits I need to really get out of for sure.

The first is when felling trees, I no longer take the time to make any escape paths. Lately a few places I have been working have been covered in saplings around it, yet I just make my notch, back the back cut and watch them fall not bothering to retreat. It was not a big deal when I was using my bigger saw because with these big Spruce I could power through the entire log with my long bar and with the open face notch its not going anywhere, but now that I am using a smaller saw and have to cut the sides before making the back cut, it makes my hinge smaller (just a wee bit in the center) and I noticed I have reverted back to a conventional notch instead of the open face notch again because of the smaller bar length. NOT GOOD!

The second one is on the landing. One thing that contributes to fatigue is climbing, so rather then get on and off my dozer while unhooking chokers (it takes a few back and forths to get everything undone sometimes), I operate my dozer from the ground. It would not take a lot to get tangled up in the tracks and yet I just do it. Again, NOT GOOD!

 

I'll give this post 5 stars, that's the way God intended it my man, I don't care what the culture says.

 

Please think and pray about this brother, we want you around as does your bride.

 

Not for nothing, but I have been cutting for around 20 years. Early on I got hit by a lapsed tree, never happened again. Early on the saw kicked out and I clipped my boot, never happened again. I cut a lot of wood. I am not trying to be be mean, but it sounds like you should do some planning prior to your cutting, planning around the hazards. It might be worth approaching each day like it is your first with a chainsaw, and first day around a log pile. Each incident you referenced could have killed you, and sounds like each was close. Stuff happens and you could simply have been unlucky in every case, but stepping back and looking at each hazard sounds prudent. The next widow maker could be a 1000 lb limb, it your saw goes an inch deeper and hits an artery.

 

I hear you guys, its just bad habits which is another way of saying laziness.

It only takes a second to jump on the dozer and shove brush and saplings out of the way on each side of the tree before felling, or jumping up on the dozer instead of operating it from the ground. But then you get away with it, and then soon you are doing it every time, then it quickly becomes a habit. They are easy to form that is for sure, and very hard to break.

 

Yeah when I was Safety Coordinator for the railroad that was my job, to convince guys much older than me that just because they did something for 30 years and got away with it did not mean they always would. I was taught then that doing something (good or bad) consecutively for 21 days straight made it a habit and so that is what we would do. We would pick our 3 biggest safety issues...so it was not overwhelming...and try and work on them until statistically that issue dropped off the radar, then we would pick up another top safety issue and work on that. We called it behavior Based Safety, but it was just a fancy way of marketing how people thought and not about using guards or rules to protect them.

So what I should do in my case is be real safe on felling trees; using the open face notch, making sure I have an escape route (or two) and getting on and off the bulldozer instead of operating it from the ground. Realistically, in 21 days time or so, that will be cemented as habit.

 

A lot of it is where I am cutting right now. The bigger trees are spaced far apart with lots of saplings in between them. It is really dense, so to save time, I have been making inroads into the stand, then fell the bigger logs into previous areas cleared, bucking the trees into logs where it is clear of brush. It does save a lot of time because making escape paths into such heavy underbrush is problematic and time consuming.

Standing beside the tree as it falls came about this Spring. As you know, that time of year you just look at an ash tree and it barber chairs on you. I had 3 nice trees ending up barber chairing on me, so after that, to ensure I had valuable wood, I stuck with it. By that I mean, make a nice notch, then cut onto the sides of the tree to ensure only the center has a hinge, then make your back cut, but to ensure it doesn't split, just stay with it. The tree can't barber chair if you cut through the hinge! You got no control of the tree, but you can't cut through the hinge if your 10 feet away either! I just got used to doing that, and now, even though I am cutting Spruce, stay with it. Between clear-cutting and spruce having those big boughs though, they tend to settle pretty good, but its not the safest thing to do for sure.

Not a great picture, but you can see where I am cutting anyway.

 

On another thread you talked aout the wife you love. So, why don't you sit down with the little lady and explain the shortcuts you are doing, how it saves you a few minutes a day, and ask her if she is OK with that. Be honest with her, let her know there is a chance that it could maim you or kill you if you are not lucky. Ask her if that is OK by her.
You know what she will say, right? Something like or or , but certainly not .

Then promise her you will not do it, and give her permission to ask you about it. (If that will get on your nerves, then have a good friend take that role.) It sure beats explaining from the hospital bed.

Greg

 

She'll come out in the woods with me and watch me work. Not a lot as she has 4 daughters to take care of, but when she can she will. She enjoys being out in the woods, and from growing up in a village, enjoys watching logging operations take place.

She feels incredibly bad about not contributing to the family financially, but we do just fine as is, but after 5 years of being a stay-at-home-mom just feels guilty about it. So to that end she is always trying to think of ways to work from home. I feel bad for her and let her try her ways though I know they will never net much from her efforts. If she really wanted to contribute however she could just come into the woods with me and drive bulldozer or tractor that way I could spend more time dropping trees. I have been logging heavily for 3 months now and have not even made a dent in the woods as far as clearing it, and that is only a 30 acre piece!

One thing I see and hear a lot of is that in the past woman stayed home to take care of the kids, but this is just not so. To a limited degree it happened from the Industrial Revolution until the 1960's, but before that, the family stayed home and farmed together. She is my best friend and I would love to spend more time with her in my retirement years, and certainly not with her at the house and me in the woods clearing land, but working to a collective goal. We had that chance this year because the 3 year old could go to school, but being the baby, Katie just could not let go yet and never enrolled her so she could have her home for another year.

 

I spent a lot of time in Menonmonie Wisconsin, and I always felt that there was identical to here, with their rolling hills, back roads and farm land. About the only thing different was how they configured their trucks; they put the loaders on their tri-axles in the rear of the truck instead of behind the cab. I figured it had to do with weight limit laws or something.

 

I have little experience compared to some of you but I have a few friends that have been bit and bit in such a way they thought the chain was the last thing they'd see, one of you said you always brake the chain after every cut no matter the size, I try to do that it's a habit with the bigger cuts where I have to move around and always wear my ppe, try to remember to wear chaps. I feel like I owe it to my wife to work as safely as possible.

 

You bet I have been bit. My dog almost took off the tip of my right hand ring finger. He was trapped and when I went to help him get loose all he knew was that he was hurting and he lashed out at my hand that was in reach.
As far as a chain saw, I got clumsy one day and cut my pants leg with a non-running saw when I was carrying it from place to place. No damage to me but it reminded me the chain is sharp even when not turning.

 

Yep. I've cut myself just sharpening a chain more times than I could ever count.

But yeah, I've been bitten by a moving chain as well.

One cold, breezy, winter day back in '03-'04 I was trimming a tree that had a vinyl fence under it. I had roped down the brush and some of the wood and decided it would be quicker (with a snowstorm knocking on the door) if I just blocked the rest of the wood down. I could cut it and just pull it back away from the fence and it would fall cleanly in the yard. Here is the important part. I was in a hurry trying to beat the snow. Made my front cut. Went a little higher on the back cut so the two would overlap and snap off. Well it snapped off and as I was pulling it away from the fence and back into the yard, I dragged my left hand right across the still spinning chain. It caught my glove and dug right in. Thankfully it was a thick insulated glove but it still took 18 stitches to put the heel of my hand back together.

 

To my knowledge trucks are rear load so they get more reach behind and so they can load pup trailers. A lot of tree service trucks are rigged that way so they have moe options for grabbing logs. Side yards suddenly are reachable from driveways. But they lose the ability to put longer, random logs on their truck as they have a hard stop in the back.

And on the subject of safety lapses. At least you know what they are and can correct them. Nothing is more scary than watching a person with shorts and sneakers holding the throttle full on and walking the length of a tree while swinging the saw like a hedge trimmer to brush it up. Especially when the operator thinks he knows what he is doing. Or going at a spring pole in the same fashion, gaining stupidity because the blowdown had been there for three years and the spring pole had lost its spring.

 

Yes a lot of people do not understand my methodology. Its like going to a Men's Bible Study. Whether we put on aires or not, we all sin, just as with logging we all have bad habits. But just as it would be wrong to point out the sin in another person's life lest it offend them, its better to use sin in our own life as an example. In this thread I have chosen to highlight a few of the things I do wrong so that the discussion of safety gets presented. I have thick skin so I can handle ridicule, but the most important part is that we are talking about safety just before people get cranked up for firewood season.

I was laughing at you comments regarding the rear-mounted loader only because if I want to make an extra few bucks, instead of cutting my wood 24-26 feet to put on the trucks, I'll cut it 32' letting it overhand by 6 feet or so. My truck drivers absolutely hate it, but they always take it and nets me another 1.5 cord. They are overloaded, but it nets me a few extra bucks for the load! I could not do that if they had log loaders on the back.

 

I got nipped about 15 years ago when I was 18 or 19. I'd been cutting firewood with my dad for a few years by then and thought I knew a lot. A buddy of mine had a huge 30+ inch oak that topped itself during an ice storm, the trunk snapped and the top fell over and the tree essentially landed upside down with the remainder of the trunk pointing in the air and the branches supporting it. Picture this, but on a much larger scale:



Anyway, we needed a path cut to get the truck back there, so I took Dad's MS310 with the 20" bar and started walking with the bar parallel to the ground, WOT and started sweeping the bar back and forth like it was a weed trimmer. I don't remember exactly what happened next, I think some saplings bucked the saw and the chain hit my leg and I felt a burning sensation. I quickly took off my Carhartt bibs right there in the woods, but couldn't unzip the pants legs because the chain had mangled the zipper. Luckily there was no blood on me, just a nasty rug burn. That's the only close call I've had with a chain saw.

Later that day, we were deciding how to get that tree on the ground, so I decided I'd walk under the tree and start cutting branches until the tree eventually tipped over and fell. And that's exactly what I did! I was pretty much completely under the tree when it started tipping, and luckily I was able to safely run under the falling branches and trunk with a running saw in my hands and made it to safety. Talk about dumb luck!!!

Anyway, I hope I learned my lessons at young age, I'm much more careful now. Heck, since my daughter was born last October sometimes I feel like a wimp as there's things I'll refuse to do, just because I want to stay alive and healthy to provide for a family now!

That being said, I did get careless last summer with a Corona hand saw. I was supporting the branch I was cutting with my free hand, the saw slipped and went darn near to the bone of my index finger. I probably should have gotten stitches but I just wrapped it myself. The scar is hard to see now, but sometimes my finger just aches for no reason.