Faller Fatalities

[Scooter]

Here's an article relevant to BC fallers:

http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/british-c ... ign=buffer

[newforest]

Interesting article, interesting comment section.

Telling workers they should refuse dangerous situations presumes they can recognize a dangerous situation. But in falling work, you don't always recognize a dangerous situation until you see it happening for the first time.


This year once again I found myself watching a vibration wave roll through a snag, while I was standing in waist deep slash with little ability to move very far or very fast. The snag did not break fortunately but watching one of those waves is chilling. I have seen this once before and attributed the danger on the block to letting it grow for 3 seasons before hiring out the Timber Stand Improvement work, making for lush vegetation. This year I did one that was relatively freshly cut and the new growth wasn't an issue.

The real problem was the amount of snags - up to 20 / acre = 44 / ha Basically they waited so long to harvest that the Birch and Aspen possibly had more dead wood than live wood on many of the acres. Volume was probably actually decreasing as the site slowly converted to Fir from underneath. (We were cutting the Fir and residual soft maple to improve the Aspen regen). This agency is now known for having too many "ologists" and not enough Foresters. As in eco-, hydro-, icthy-, ge-, bi-. and archae-.

The agency involved has a guideline of leaving 2-4 snags / acre for wildlife habitat. All well and good I suppose. But when you are falling live stems as tall or taller than large snags ... how many is too many? This is not an issue in planting work generally but falling in and around that many snags was really too dangerous, I thought. I felt like if I worked on similar sites for a few months it wouldn't be an issue of if I got injured, but when.

I missed this issue during the site visit by not walking the whole site, the front end was real clean. I don't have to bid on them in the future, but I still feel someone of my competitor's crews will eventually pay a heavy price to work around that many snags. The agency ignores my comments on that.

So just venting as usual. I know a contractor who used to do the exact same work and he told the agency the exact same thing. He says it is un-consciounable to leave snags on a logging job, and I agree.

Any thought on residual snags?

[newforest]

Meanwhile on the topic of Falling Safety, does anyone have any experience with this:



I only learned of it recently. I am hoping to figure out how to put in a pouch that can stay on the belt strap of a pair of chaps, or one of the straps on a brush-saw harness. I currently run with a small pouch holding a trauma bandage, but I'm not sure how/if this product will fit, or if it is big enough for a saw cut. I just saw something similar in a forestry equipment catalog:



But I'm a little uncertain if a 2 part system (w/ applicator) is the way to go even if it is smaller overall.


The agency I've been working for put the first item in the first aid kits for their sawyers. But I'm unsure if the kit actually moves around with the sawyer, or is just 'on site' somewhere. I am somewhat hoping they used an off-the-shelf solution, designed to be worn on the sawyer's person somewhere. (I am going to suggest they send some of their own sawyers into a site like the one in my previous post and see what they report back)


I'm hopefully starting saw safety training on Thursday. More so I will be able to teach it later as I'm sure Level I won't tell me much. Level II on Friday and III and IV next year I hope. The guy I'm working for in January is an instructor too.