Tree Feller Crushed by Falling Tree–Virginia

Details

• Corporate Authors:
  National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health. Fatality Assessment and Control Evaluation (FACE) Program
• Description:
  A tree feller was killed when a falling tree struck him from behind while he was limbing a fallen tree. The 45-year-old male tree feller was employed by a logging company that specialized in hardwood timber logging. Four fellers and a feller/breacher operator were clearing a tract of hardwood timber. The four fellers began limbing trees that had been felled the previous day. Later the feller/breacher operator began to cut a 26-inch diameter hollow tree but the chain kept flying off the bar. The feller/breacher operator had tried to cut the tree from both sides and was in the process of fixing the chain a second time when the victim began to cut limbs from a felled tree 45 feet in front of the partially cut tree. A strong gust of wind snapped the partially cut tree, allowing it to fall on the victim, who did not hear the warning cries of his fellow workers due to the noise of his own chain saw. He died of a skull fracture. It was recommended that employers should develop and enforce a written safety program, provide training in recognizing and avoiding hazards, and designate a qualified person to conduct periodic safety inspections.
• Subjects:
  Accidents, Occupational Forestry Occupational Health Safety
• Keywords:
  Accident-analysis Chain-saws FACE-92-38 Logging-workers Lumber-industry Lumberjacks OSHA Region 3 Safety-practices
• FACE - NIOSH and State:
  FACE ; Logging
• Series:
  Fatality Assessment and Control Evaluation Reports (FACE)
• Subseries:
  NIOSH (In-House)
• DOI:
  https://doi.org/10.26616/NIOSHFACE9238
• Publisher:
  National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health
• Document Type:
  Text
• Genre:
  Field Study
• Place as Subject:
  Virginia ; OSHA Region 3
• CIO:
  National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH)
• Division:
  DSR - Division of Safety Research
• Topic:
  Workplace Safety & Health
• Location:
  North America
• Pages in Document:
  3 pdf pages
• NIOSHTIC Number:
  nn:00213104
• NTIS Accession Number:
  PB93-188571
• Citation:
  Morgantown, : U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Public Health Service, Centers for Disease Control, National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health
• Federal Fiscal Year:
  1993
• Peer Reviewed:
  False
• NAICS and SIC Codes:
  31-33 - Manufacturing - (NAICS)
• Start Date:
  1992/08/25
• Collection(s):
  National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health
• Main Document Checksum:
  urn:sha-512:0ec84c87ca248ba8509e1482f71507565a976894bc7bb1b81c2d6c9ca456d529a4fae4fa67639cc502e48fefbfe0d150a6410e6cd27e4250f49db72d05f5b87e
• Download URL:
  https://stacks.cdc.gov/view/cdc/167522/cdc_167522_DS1.pdf
• File Type:
  [PDF - 266.96 KB ]