Bad Idea

Is this a third world country in the photos? No, its a third-rate job, right down the street from my house.

Its hard to believe that people are still hiring unsafe workers to do one of the most dangerous jobs imaginable. Or maybe this was a 'favor', the kind I hear about so many times in the past tense in my capacity as expert witness in tree-related injury cases.

" So you are telling me that no money was exchanged, and your cousin just volunteered to do the job?"

"Yes, your honor."

"And you never thought about what might go wrong?"

"No sir, I mean, he was a real good trimmer, god rest his soul."

These photos could be titled, What the Hell Were They Thinking? Or A Redneck Gets R Done.

It angers me because I mention to people that I am an arborist, and about the first thing out of their mouths is how they know someone who was seriously hurt doing that kind of work. Maybe its just an urban legend, or maybe it is a mass consciousness of the inevitability of error in a profession that routinely runs power saws in a place with no viable exit strategy.

When a logger fells a tree, and it starts to crack, and hinge down, things can go wrong, and guess what? He can drop the saw and run. Most of them are so good at what they do that they surprise me. I see them sometimes on lot clearings in Portland, and I am blown away by the stuff they will attempt and execute.

Arborists get in unavoidable situations where something above them, tied, rigged, and directed, is supposed to go in a certain direction, say south. And as the back is cut, it becomes apparent that the wood is rotten, the thing is not going to hinge like it should; its headed east-no west-north... he starts to yell to his ground crew, to tell them to pull it harder, or stop pulling it, or begin praying... Remember, he is tied in to that thing. Tons of tree could suddenly decide to obey some arcane law of physics and end up in his lap, or on his hard hat. That's the difference between us and the loggers. We can't run.

And no amount of safety awareness, protection, or training can prepare you for certain situations.

You do your best to avoid being caught alive in a dead tree, like the one pictured, because you can usually tie into a larger, living tree nearby. If the dead one fails while you climb it or work in it, you swing back into the live one; and maybe break a leg, but your priorities were excellent, you avoided the Reaper. We all know there is no guarantee, climbing a dead tree. A piece the size of a motorcycle can break off as you climb up, due to the vibrations you initiate. If that hits you, going 25 feet per second, per second...Lets just say the hardhat will make it easier for the funeral home to reconstruct something.

Sometimes there is no live tree. No crane access. Just a big backyard full of valuable stonework, and sculpture, and a pool, and a roof of a glass greenhouse. And you bang on the dead tree; pronounce it ok, and you go up. You do it for the money. Or you were dumb enough to sell it, and you do it for your pride's sake. I have. One thing you will notice is that the longer the guy has been in the business, the calmer he is around dangerous situations. This can be a problem in itself, but I have noticed over the years that the oldest guys on the job tend to do the weirdest removals. I've seen good climbers get partway up something, climb down and say; "Uh- uh. Not me, not today." Something can scare any of us.

For me it was a coconut, twisting in a light wind, probably under twenty miles per hour. But it was five or six feet from a primary power line, and moved within two feet or so each time there was a gust. I went up past the wire, never cut a frond. I was the second guy who went up, climbed down that day. Something about it. Third guy, older than either of us, just did it.

But I have also gone up dead hardwoods, cut them down to applause, and realized when I made the butt cut that I was standing fifty or sixty feet in the air on something with the structure of a roll of tissue paper. You look at the hollow after it falls, and its kind of unreal. Ipso Facto logic tells you that if it didn't fall, it must not have been dangerous. The fallacy plays out every day, even for the best of us. The safest way is always the best way; seldom the fastest or most dramatic way. But safety does not have to be a dull proclamation. Safety is fun!

Countless times we go up and come down, with the only notable result that everyone goes home safe, the tree is beautiful, and ok, maybe we crushed a sprinkler head we did not see.

And to those of us who do it right, there is no more insulting sight than some idiot doing it dead wrong. That's the idiot who will be remembered, get ink in the paper, and be the public face of arboriculture. His utter foolishness will just be a sidebar, noticed by the intelligentsia of trees. And when I mention I do tree work, people will think I am a little bit crazy (I am) and a little bit foolish (I am not) and that special brand of fool who tempts fate.

I do not. Most of us doing this for a living do not. Most of us who do tree work are smart about a lot of things, or we just do not last. The problem with our industry is that the press we get is unexciting unless we fall, or cut ourselves, somewhere out of reach of the ambulance crew. It affects our insurance rates, our credibility with homeowner/clients, and our standing as an industry.

We can do all the Arbor Days and public service things from now on, and never get as big a headline than the guy who gets crushed, electrocuted, or falls. It isn't because the world must know. Its because death and destruction sells the news. Information is a sidebar. That's what I have seen in watching and clipping things for over 25 years in this profession.

Thus I tend to see the international news as less than true. If you've ever been quoted in a newspaper, you'll see immediately what I mean. Even a straight news story can get spun. Take the war in Iraq. Please.