DH vs. chainsaw, and the winner is....

[Arcnadius]

DH was using the chainsaw yesterday to clear some trees. He's "old school" and refuses to use the safety brake on the saw because he's been doing this for years. He at least took his finger off the trigger before reaching down to pick up someone's old, discarded can of Off! but the chain was still moving around the bar when he got the saw a little bit too close to his leg.

I can't wait to get the bill from the ER for our hour and 45 minute visit. Thankfully, the wound only needed an overpriced tube of special Superglue called Dermabond to seal it up (could've done that myself with a $5 visit to the hardware store

).

Note to all you amateur loggers out there...Buy and wear personal safety equipment (gloves, chaps, boots, hardhat, hearing/eye protection) and engage the safety brake if you are not making a cut. It only takes a second with a sharp chain to change your life.

This concludes my public service announcement.

 

[jacyjones]

Well - he was really lucky!! I agree with your announcement. My husband is a forest manager so his chainsaw work is all done on our land now but he always uses safety equipment even tho he is really experienced. You can't afford to take risks with sucha dangerous piece of kit.

 

[SilverPhoenix]

Eeek, this makes me cringe! Especially after my dad's friend (who owns a tree-cutting company) cut off multiple fingers and almost cut through his whole hand. The fingers were saved and hand put back together, but only after lots of surgery and rehabilitation...and of course it'll never be completely how it was before the injury.

I hope your DH heals as soon as possible and without any complications! I'll be thinking good thoughts for him.

 

[gettinaclue]

Good advice! My BIL cut part way thru his leg when he was a young teen. He didn't lose his leg, but he has quite a scar. He was lucky.

 

[Arcnadius]

Wow! Those other injuries sound horrible. It truly makes me thankful that ours turned out okay.

The Dr. opted for gluing the wound since it was on hubby's knee where stitches maybe would have been under more stress or something. The wound wasn't very jagged and was only just deep enough to even need stitches. Had he cut himself anywhere else on his leg, I would have just steri-stripped it together with a dressing for protection.

I took a chainsaw safety class last fall so I could help with the felling and cutting, but hubby just gives me "the look" when I make "suggestions."

Maybe now he'll be more willing to at least consider my opinion.

We'll see.

 

[joebryant]

It's for sure that I will be reading this entire thread.
I have a chain saw, but I shouldn't have it. I've had some really close calls, e.g., like my greatgrandfather who was killed while felling a tree, I had a 60-70-foot walnut tree fall the opposite direction of where it was supposed to; luckily, I moved out of the way in time. Another time, I was standing on a tall ladder propped on the same large limb that I was cutting off (yeah, that's right); when the long, heavy limb fell, the part that the ladder was on went flying up about three feet leaving only about two inches of ladder still leaning on the short stub limb and me standing on the ladder with a chain saw running at full speed.

 

[Arcnadius]

Quote:
I think I married your twin brother!

Thank goodness you're still here to tell the stories, but I think your guardian angel is getting tired!

 

[booker81]

Hubby is a line clearance tree trimmer, and he does side work a lot. He's been at it for 19 years now, and it's amazing to watch him because he is SO SO SO careful. Every single cut, every move is planned out, and he always stops to re-evaluate everything every five minutes. Even with stopping so often, he's incredibly fast at cutting trees down. He's the only person I know that can handle a running chainsaw for 10hours or more, stopping only to gas the saw up or sharpen it.

He's got horror stories though - of other people. Cutting parts of their arms off, faces, falls, etc. He does a lot of dead ash tree work, which is VERY dangerous, and he's seen some guys get too cocky and meet a bad end. He knows a lot of folks who've died from working trees, the most from tree doing the "barber-chair" thing.

It's fun to watch him though. Even if it's the shortest climb ever, he will never use a ladder, and will saddle up and manually climb. It's handy to have him around for hanging treestands

For this tree, he had our house feed wire about 40 feet on one side, the powerlines feeding the neighbors about 30 feet the other side, and you can see the propane tank. The horse trough is covering our well head. He brought the entire thing down in an hour, without touching anything, just one big pile of wood and brush.

 

[joebryant]

Quote:
I hired a man and wife team to cut down six very tall trees in my yard a few years ago. She worked with ropes on the ground, and he too climbed the trees. It was AMAZING how they, like your husband, could make everything fall in the exact spot where they wanted it.
Glad your husbands a safety nut; it's unlikely you'll be a young widow.

 

[SillyChicken]

So Arcnadius, how does your DH feel about safety devices now?