Chipper carnage

I definitely don't consider myself a safety Nazi, and I'm pretty sure no one that knows me or worked around me would say so either. I just have a huge problem with people doing things that could easily become a serious injury or fatality over and over again. I've stopped people working in an unsafe manner before, because i cared enough to do so. An 18" chipper is absolutely no joke, and must be shown the respect it commands. A rope going in that could easily pull someone in without even dropping rpms. The winch could rip off its mounting, smashing someone in the head, not to mention the explosion of that going through. There are a million terrible scenarios that could result from that happening, and just about all of them could result in someone being killed.

If you run a super small outfit where you drag stuff by hand and shove it in the back of a truck, you can use unskilled labor. In my opinion, when you run more and more equipment, you are asking for a higher skill set to work safely. When you are running a crane, an 18" chipper, and God knows what else, and doing multiple removals a day, you are making enough money to pay for people who are experienced, professional, and will work safe knowing that if they don't they are gone. Just my opinion, as someone who works in dangerous environments all day every day. Where i work, both the laborer and the operator are immediately pulled from work if they hit something as innocuous as a service line, and an investigation is done determining cause. If i fail a weld or xray, I'm done. In other words, your job is on the line with every thing you do, and that's why the pay is what it is. I find tree work is an incredibly demanding and dangerous line of work, and tolerance for unsafe work actions will eventually lead to ruined lives.

I've worked in plants for years, and people have died at those plants. I've heard first hand stories of people being killed on site, and i have had a few close calls myself. In my experience, some are just bad luck, but most are caused by people not being experienced enough. Unsafe actions will likely be ok for awhile, until the day they aren't. Every time you do a safe act, you are adding points to your luck fund, so when the day comes, hopefully luck will be on your side when fate cashes in your chips. If you make good habits, those habits can save you. The fatalities I'm familiar with would have easily been prevented by people taking the required steps for the task, and not cutting corners to speed up the process.
 
I think I would have killed everyone on the crew who was there on the job site when a steel object went thru the chipper let alone the guilty party. It's a team event tree work IMO. Everybody has got every bodies back.
 
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  • #78
I think I would have killed everyone on the crew who was there on the job site when a steel object went thru the chipper let alone the guilty party. It's a team event tree work IMO. Everybody has got every bodies back.

Accidents happen, thats why they are called accidents
 
If our ground man can't learn to tie a knot, maybe he's knotistic.

Rich, we use a marl in the front (butt end) of the load, then were using a the carabiner or hook further out. But now it's marl in the front, running bowline or timber hitch in the back. That way once the load is on the table, we can slip off the marl, advance it into the feed rollers, shut them off, undo the knot and secure the rope to the chipper before continuing to feed. I'll give the twin marls + tail a try -- never though to not have a terminating knot beyond the marl(s).

Kyle, I suppose your question was mostly rhetorical? "Professional" simply means (a take on August's slogan) = "Paid for this." In our iconoclast industry of rugged individualists and self-made men, I would think it would be hard to quantify some broad definition of what constitutes a "professional." There's the fundamentals as laid out by Jerry, but then beyond that, I've seen quite a diverse spectrum of tree crews. I see the beginner guys just starting out (with a pickup and a saw), to some local rag-tag outfits to some of the large line clearance crews with full time flaggers and all high viz gear and 5 year or newer trucks. I think we fall somewhere in the middle -- for sure past rag-tag but not to the level of having formal management hierarchy and prescribed roles ("I'm a climber; I don't haul brush."). We are rolling out the work, yet have an impeccable safety record as far as personnel and property damage goes (only an occasional picket or gutter gets it!). 2 guys have made a mistake, hopefully lessons learned and not to be repeated, after a safety huddle and private conversations. Chipper itself handled it quite well, didn't throw knives, just ate the carabiners and spit them out, even some length of rope without binding on the drum.

Our current winch line is a retired climbing line, 7,000 lb. Our previous was a retired bull rope, 10,000 working. I think that's where I got the 10,000 lb winch figure -- I just looked it up and it's actually a 2,000 lb. hydraulic winch -- hence it's nickname "wimp."
 
Any aluminum carabiner will work, but I recommend something smaller instead of larger. I once had a large aluminum carabiner break from side loading while rigging a log with it. A smaller carabiner won't allow the convex shape of the log apply as much side pressure to the ends.

Here's a handy little carabiner I've used for multiple chores over the years, including holding my saw on my saddle. Cheap, keyed gate, easy to handle. They come in locking and non locking, straight and bent gate. Black diamond Positron.
https://www.amazon.com/Black-Diamon...BGAQ/ref=sr_1_3?ie=UTF8&qid=1540068964&sr=8-3
 
7000# mbs, not swl.


Do your feed wheels work while your winch has power? My experience is with a Bandit.



How did the hook/ biner end up in the chipper the first time?

The second time?

Seems like two people getting involved in one person's job, frankly, or a poor process.


Best I can tell, one guy hooks at the drop zone. Second guy pulls in, resets, starts feed, stops wheels, reels in winch line so it can't get eaten, same person re-engages feed wheels.

One person throughout, or one person to hook, then continue in the drop zone or whatever, while one person does the rest of the process.

If you want something to occasionally go wrong, have two people doing one person's work. If you want it to go right, involve one competent person.



Kyle, facetious.
What, you want to go home at night? All ten fingers?
 
We have a couple of those aluminum biners laying around -- no one likes them since they are screw gate. Using them to clip the water cooler up on the racks in the chip truck. Saw biners we have are the Petzl Am'D ball lock.

I think the rope is actually 8,000 lb strength Samson, so it would be 800 lb working load. We've tested it, pulling the chip truck in neutral backwards toward an anchor point via the winch. Has proven to be fine for the branches & logs we need to get up on the table from the ground.

I can understand the one time on the dam -- pulling a muddy log up out of the mire, hard to see the rope or biner and sucked it in. This time, the other guy was just not paying attention enough -- another tree crew had just driven by and he was distracted by the ensuing conversation. We're definitely re-working the positioning and assignments and getting back into a simple rhythm where jobs aren't traded off.
 
It's kind of annoying when too many people work the winch, but it can help to have someone straighten the branch, or better reach the carabiner from the other side. One time I was fighting the safety bar with someone else because they thought the rollers needed to go, but I needed them stopped to retract the winch line.
 
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  • #87
I agree, shouldnt happen more than once
 
pointing the finger of blame is a quick way to frig up team work......shit happens
 
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  • #95
No such thing as an accident, something or somebody is always responsible.

Something or sombody IS ALWAYS responsible. We are human.

Just what is your point? Should we be like the bible says jesus was? Be perfect?

I dont understand your point. It does not make sense, errrrr unless you are perfect that is. Then i understand.
????
 
pointing the finger of blame is a quick way to frig up team work......shit happens

Blaming someone is different that analyzing the dangerous situation that could have been really bad to prevent it from becoming really, really bad another time.

You know, the accident triangle, so many near-misses...




If I couldn't trust someone to keep a winch line (a rope actually attached to the chipper, known to be by the active chipper, etc, etc) out of the chipper, could I ever trust them with a climbing/ rigging rope out during chipping? That's what kills people...the window to stop the 'accident' of a climbing or rigging rope that the chipper starts eating is about zero seconds before someone's life could be in danger.
 
Something or sombody IS ALWAYS responsible. We are human.

Just what is your point? Should we be like the bible says jesus was? Be perfect?

I dont understand your point. It does not make sense, errrrr unless you are perfect that is. Then i understand.
????

To quote someone on here, I can explain it for you but I can’t understand it for you.

You’ll have to try harder.
 
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