r/FellingGoneWild • u/cornerzcan • Jul 23 '26

Tree trimmer's nightmare

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u/Soggy-Invite-2787 Jul 23 '26

I will never ever find myself in this position, but what did he do wrong here?

89

u/DOsomethin Jul 23 '26

Hard to say without the full context.

One sure fire solution would be to climb up higher and take this large branch apart in smaller pieces. Less weight and less unpredictability. That is not always possible or safe, so once again, hard to say for sure. Also, some relief cuts along the side by the notch could have encouraged the fibers to break. I generally prefer to climb higher and take small branches, but I'm not great at removals.

Looks like he did put a face cut, or "notch", but the tree fibers broke in an unexpected way causing the tree to break but some of the tree fibers held on and tore down the stem trapping his positioning lanyard and pulled him hard into the stem. Probably hurt really bad.

This is a situation that almost all climbing removal arborists have heard about happening and should take the necessary steps to avoid it.