Safety Report from 1990

[Scooter]

I found an old article about safety in the silviculture industry. Here's a direct link, if you want the PDF:
http://www.replant.ca/docs/silviculture_safety_1990.pdf

[Scooter]

Interesting that the references to planters being killed by bears (in 1986 and 1988) cannot be correlated from this list of bear deaths in North America in the past century. I wonder if Dirk remembers anything about them.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_f ... th_America

[jdtesluk]

The 86 one is probably the 85 one in the list. Nasty. Not sure about the 88, and I think the mauling in 1990 may actually have occurred in 92 (north of McKenzie area).

Dirk kind of hits the nail on the head with some of his concerns....hygiene, camp standards, and responsibility of the licensee. He was ahead of his time in many respects, including his ideas about what was needed to improve OHS in the industry. Many of the things he recommended came to fruition in some form or another, including what is now relatively standard bear training throughout the majority of operations. I have tremendous respect for Dirk, and can attest that his concern for planters (all planters) is like love of family.

I just finished delivering a "State of the Union" address for OHS in planting at the WSCA. In it I noted fatalities in 2000,01, and 03. These occurred amidst a RADICAL improvement in OHS in planting from the 90s to the mid 2000's during which the injury and serious fatality rates declined by around 50%. We continued to improve in the wake of SAFE companies and new regulations .We had a cluster of fatalities 2008 (3), 10, and 11. This was followed by a big uptick in enforcement. We have had NO transport deaths since 2008, and no deaths on the job since 2011 until this year when one gentleman apparently passed from a heart situation/condition.

We have been fortunate to avoid critical incidents, but I argue the conditions to cause them persist. That is, we have had dozens if not hundreds of close calls (i.e. Lasqueti Daughter) that could have caused mass casualties. However, we have been in some cases lucky, and in other cases saved by better practices (wearing seatbelts) or better technology (trucks that crash better). I am concerned at this time about complacency, and hope we do not need another painful lesson to warn us to the situations (i.e. rolled quads, planter tumbling off cliffs) that could easily lead to a fatality if fate turns cruel.

Meanwhile, the improvement in our rates has totally flat-lined over the past decade. That is we DID improve massively after Y2k, but over the past decade we have not been able to significantly alter our injury rates. We have new training programs, better tendo treatment, advanced understandings of ergonmics, better equipment choices, and highly advanced safety programs. Yet, we remain far far above acceptable claims levels, with an alarming uptake in serious (costly) musculoskeletal injuries. My explanation is this: We have eaten up all our gains (in health and performance) with a corresponding increase in production and speed. We are killing ourselves slowly with speed and rushing. I see rookies doing 3k, coastal planters hitting 2k. Yes, specs have changed (f-layer) and coastal has more second growth, but there is no question in my mind that the speed of the industry has increased. You don't take 2-3 years to learn the job, you learn to plant in 2-3 weeks or go home. Nobody will pay you minimal wage (emp standards 37.9) to float around the break-even point all year. Companies are hitting records all over the place. This means not only more trees and more human impacts, but more tree delivery trips, less time to directly watch your crew, more steps and more runs for each person, more weight on quads and trucks. more more more more more more more. You get the idea. At some point, you hit a curve to fast and something dreadful happens.

We have, to some extent, conflated human performance (nutrition and stretching ...) in planting with safety. It is not safety. That performance drive is how we have squeezed more and more from our machinery (i.e. our bodies). While loggers have taken on some of this human performance stuff lately, they see safety as lockout, no work zones, and serious stuff. They squeeze efficiency from better machines. We squeeze it from our tendons and tissues. This has a cost in bodies breaking down....but also in bodies being fatigues and in few precious minutes being left to stop and think. Stop and think. SO MUCH in our industry has changed...technology, the forests themselves, forestry specifications, public behavior, liability....but have our safety programs changed in lockstep with the changes in our industry? I say no. We have some significant vulnerabilities right now, and the statistical regression to the mean dictates that if we continue to allow/create the conditions that produce critical incidents, we will have a critical incident. I say this hoping and wishing it does not happen, but I see it. I have audited 74 silviculture operations, interviewed over 2000 workers, surveyed nearly 2000 more, reviewed industry statistics, and worked with the regulators. I worry every time I see Betts come up on my phone, and hope I am not about to hear about a critical incident.

Don't get me wrong. We have made tremendous improvements in how we do our job. Thank you to Dirk, to Chris Akehurst, to John Betts, Lisa Houle, among others that have been leaders in safety. Thanks to the contractors that have supported the WSCA and the safety committee in better driver training. Shame on the contractors that have turned their nose up at this process. Not all of them. Some have pursued safety improvements on their own and outside the WSCA. I can point out some very proactive contractors that have really changed on their own accord for the better. However, there are some dreadful safety-loafers out there that have only taken and never given. Make no mistake. Those that have given (i.e. named above) have SAVED LIVES. We now have a seatbelt culture. We see danger trees cut from camps more often than not. We have clearer camp standards. We have employment standards brought forward by conscientious contractors---not by workers, but by contractors that wanted to prevent marginal operators from exploiting workers. We see planters getting good bear safety training, and proper ergo training (sometimes). But we are still incredibly vulnerable.

That, in a nutshell, is my summary of where we are. What do we need to do?
Share information about close calls an incidents. We need to better understand where our greatest risks are occurring and the conditions that surround them. We have many operators agreeing to share information for this purpose. Hopefully this can inform better safety training.
We need to continue with better physio and treatment systems, but we need first to address preventive measures. Fancy coloured physio tape is nice, and injury management is wonderful...but it is better to prevent than to treat.
We have to at some point accept that there is a cap on the speed that a planter can make a decent wage without risking injury. That is the biggest issue of all. Licensees are central to this. I don't know how to make that happen, and continue to search for an explanation that will not require a catastrophe to illustrate. We can make productive gains in silviculture....better seedlings, better prep, who knows. But I can say this. There is little if any room to push planters harder without dire consequences for their flesh and bone.

[Scooter]

The 86 one is probably the 85 one in the list. Nasty.

Oh, of course, I didn't notice that one.

I think the mauling in 1990 may actually have occurred in 92 (north of McKenzie area).

Separate incidents. This was published in 1990 ... they can't have guessed about an incident that occurred in the future. Re the incident in Mackenzie that you're thinking of, that occurred in either 1995 or probably 1996, if you're thinking about the Silvaram planter that got approximately 180 stitches after a post-breakfast encounter in camp, when he went back to his tent to grab his gear for the day. I know someone that I can ask for more details. My memory is pretty weak here, but I think it was on the Finlay FSR, and I'm pretty sure that I was working out of the same camp site for a few days just a week later, after Silvaram packed up and left.


Unrelated, I found this interesting BS Forest Safety Council commentary in the middle of a lengthy doc (2008 summary) from this link:
http://www.bcforestsafe.org/other/Safet ... rchive.pdf

Safety Alert Type:
Planning and Management
Location: West Kootenays - Tam O’ Shanter Creek Near Riondel, BC
Date of Incident: 2008-05-07
Company Name: Adam Rodgers, RPF
Details of Incident:
The Grizzly Bear incident occurred on May 7, 2008. Worker ‘x’ was working alone for the day but was in radio
contact with other crews (approximately 1km away). His specific task was to hang ribbon to identify the
location for a proposed road. Worker ‘x’ attended a tailgate safety meeting that morning and was aware of
potential hazards on the site, including animal awareness (a cougar had recently been observed in the
vicinity). At approximately 10am, Worker ‘x’ came face to face with a 2 year old Grizzly Bear. He froze and
watched as the bear approached. He tried to call on his hand-held radio for assistance but was partially
unsuccessful because the radio was located in an inside pocket in his ‘cruising vest’. By the time he got his
radio out, the bear was dangerously close (arms length away). Acting under instinct Worker ‘x’ dropped all his
field gear, turned and ran downhill with only his radio in hand. Worker ‘x’ was issued Bear spray but did not
carry his personal protective equipment device with him that day. While running, He managed to key the mike
a couple of times; however, the conversation was fragmented on the receiving end. Other crewmembers
believed Worker ‘x’ was being mauled by the bear and initiated a response based on the written emergency
evacuation procedure for the site. The safety certification auditor called for an ambulance. The first aid
attendant and helper began hiking towards Worker ‘x’. By the time Worker ‘x’ was approximately 500m away
from the first grizzly encounter, he was still running and was full of emotion. As he came upon a very steep
slope, he fell down and bruised his knee and chipped his tooth. As he stood up, he discovered the Grizzly
Bear had continued to follow him through the forest. Worker ‘x’ was again at an arms length away from the
bear. The Grizzly was standing on all 4 legs above Worker ‘x’ and swayed side to side. By then, Worker ‘x’
had begun to experience symptoms of stress and of minor shock. Worker ‘x’ began to yell and scream for his
life because he was afraid and was without bear spray / bear bangers. Fortunately the bear did not come any
closer. After a couple of minutes, the Grizzly Bear lost interest and moved on. By 10:30am, the supervisor
and first aid attendant had arrived at the scene and found Worker ‘x’ to be aware and safe. His level of shock
was minor yet he was very disturbed by the incident. The first aid attendant and helper proceeded to sweep of
the area to ensure the bear had left. The first aid attendant radioed the safety auditor to use his cell phone to
call off the ambulance. Worker ‘x’ and everyone else left the forest and discussed the event for an hour or so
at the trucks before deciding to call it a day.

It should be noted it is difficult to enforce standard operating procedures for bear
encounters. Worker ‘x’ chose to run and he was not attacked. In our opinion he made the right choice
because he is still alive. Whether or not he would have been attacked if he chose to back away slowly (as per
the bear aware seminar) is not part of this investigation.

Recommended Preventative Actions:
- Bear spray and/or bangers MUST be carried (1 per crew and 1 per person if working alone) at ALL
times between March 1st and November 30th.
- Ensure hand held radios are readily available, especially in the event of an emergency.
- When working alone, make sure you are aware of your surroundings. It is important to look at terrain
features when locating a road, but also to look outside the road prism for hazards such as curious
bears.
- Back away slowly from any Grizzly Bear encounter.

Also unrelated, here's a link to the old "Staying Safe In Bear Country" video, from BCTS. This isn't the same Bear Aware video that is slightly more famous because of the "Whoa Bear!" scene:

[Scooter]

More info, from Jim Logan:

He thinks it was 1995 rather than 1996. The camp was on the side of the Finlay, just down below Osilinka. Confirmed, it was the same camp spot that the Silvaram planter was mauled. Jordan, Jim thinks you were in that camp briefly. My crew wasn't working there. I came by myself to help out for a few days when my own crew had several days off, and about twenty minutes after I arrived, Jim asked me to help him flip a quad trailer out of the back of a truck. When that happened, a metal brace came up and hit my shin, taking a large chunk of skin out of the leg even though I was wearing jeans at the time. I ended up being bandaged up and spent the next two days doing paperwork since I wasn't able to go out to the blocks and wander around.

At that point, a guy named Jamie (friend of mine from university, who had also been my assistant foreman a few years earlier) somehow backed a truck into the school bus, and the bus jumped backward several feet and the door swung up and knocked a planter down who had been standing behind the bus. That planter ended up in a neck brace for a couple days, although there was no long-term injury.

There's a lot more to this story, it gets far more ridiculous, but I'll have to save that for one of my books.

Also, here's another random article from 2000 that mentions a planter who was attacked in 2000, near Chapleau, Ontario. She survived:

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/life/if- ... /?page=all

[jdtesluk]

Ha! I hadn't seen that alert. It wasn't me (the auditor). That's all I can say.

As for the bear mauling, you have the details correct indeed. However, I am fairly sure of the date now. It was my third year planting. I am fairly confident it was the summer of 94. You have the location right for sure. Osilinka. I was working with Mike Southwell. Ask Jim for some Southwell stories. They top the list.

[Scooter]

I worked for PRT in 1994 (Tawa, with the name change). Is that who you were working for? Jim moved to Folklore starting with the spring of 1995.

The 90's were a bit of a blur for me, in terms of planting.

[jdtesluk]

I went back through my old journals, and take it back. 1995 it was. I was working for Folklore, it was one of Jim's first contracts with them.

Thinking back to that job. Something tells me we would probably do the same job a bit differently today.

[Cyper]

This one from the Wikipedia list;

Gordon Ray, 24, male - May 29, 1985 near Fort Nelson, British Columbia Ray was killed while on a tree planting project approximately 45 kilometres (28 mi) south of Fort Nelson. He climbed a tree to avoid the bear, but fell, and was attacked. The bear was later shot by a helicopter pilot.[119]


Gordon Ray was an ETV driver, not a planter. He’d worked as an ETV driver on a crew I was on the previous year in Alberta. He was working with Jabez Kruithof ( the same guy who drowned in Burke Channel in 2008 when he & Dana Woytowich fell off his sealander). Gordie & Jebez were scouting for a camp site when they ran into a black bear, one that may have never seen humans before given how remote they were and that the trees had been winter logged. Jebez told me the horrible story of how they clung to trees while the bear waited at the bottom until Gordie couldn’t hold on any longer.

This links to Brinkman’s account of what happened aboard the sealander in 2008 - http://brinkmanforestmemorial.com/remem ... _danan.php