 Tree Worker Safety: A View from the Past
By John Ball and Shane Vosberg
Courtesy of Arborist News magazine
Tree work, as with almost everything else, has changed greatly over the years. Our lives are now filled with appliances and technology, such as cell phones and the Internet, which were considered science fiction mere decades ago.
The professional life of an arborist has also undergone many changes. We don’t carry paint cans on our side nor do we tie a tautline on a manila line. But the work environment has remained much the same. We still work at great heights with large, heavy objects known as trees.
The tree is a high-risk environment, and people who work around and in trees—loggers and arborists—have the unfortunate distinction of belonging to a category of jobs that has a high rate of fatal accidents and a high rate for severe, nonfatal accidents.
Consequently, we often hear these questions:
• Are we, as a profession, safer now than we were before?
• Do we have fewer accidents than we did in the 1950s?
• Are the accidents different?
These are not easy questions to answer. Not much historical data exist on tree worker safety before the 1970s, but there are some early articles, books, and reports that provide a glimmer of the risks associated with such work.
Some aspects to the work environment have changed over the decades. Not the tree, of course, but the tools and the exposure risks.
Chain saws were not commonly used in our profession until the 1940s. There were some two-man prototype saws used as early as 1905, but widespread use of “light” saws did not occur until the late 1940s. Hence, chain saws were not a factor in early accidents. Power lines were becoming increasingly common in the early part of the past century, particularly in towns. Therefore, electricity, then as now, was a threat to tree worker safety. Trucks and cars were in use by the early 1900s, but horses were still a common form of transportation into the 1920s. Being kicked by a horse was a tree worker risk in 1910 but is not a major concern now.
What were the major causes of accidents back then? An analysis of tree accidents was conducted in the 1930s (Kiplinger 1938). Interestingly, Kiplinger did not categorize the accidents by situation (such as falls or saws) but by root cause. The major causes were failure to observe rules or instruction, improper work method, improper use of tools, and use of defective tools.
As Kiplinger phrased it, “Sixty percent of our accidents are due to thoughtlessness. Bring your mind to work with you each day, and keep it with you all day.”
He also discussed some of the more common types of accidents through the use of case studies. Kiplinger described one accident as follows: “F.Z., somewhat of an acrobat, was not a show-off but rightly prided himself on the speed at which he worked. He underestimated his strength, however, in going up a rope hand over hand [and] fell to his death.”
An important safety tip mentioned in the book, in regard to situations such as the one just described, was “Use a rope whenever necessary. A large number of our accidents are caused by men climbing without their rope.”
Although chain saws were not a common tool, saw accidents were not unknown: “B.A. dropped a bull saw, which ricocheted over and nearly cut the head off of D.A. [who was] working under him.” This case was followed with the suggestion that “the saw should be so secured that it will not fall out of the scabbard while climbing.”
Karl Kuemmerling, an early proponent of tree worker safety, conducted an extensive survey of accidents in Ohio (1948). He determined that falls were the most common type of accident in his analysis of the 563 reported tree worker accidents that occurred in that state between 1944 and 1946. The most common type of fall was the result of a practice rare today yet common in the post-WWII era: free climbing.
In the first half of the past century, free climbing was a routine means of ascending a tree. A worker would climb to the top of the tree, then tie in and descend and work on a tautline hitch.
Climbing up hand over hand was still taught into the 1980s, as evident by the cover photograph on the February 1983 issue of Journal of Arboriculture, which shows a student climbing by hand on the climbing line while not attached to the saddle.
Back then, the number two cause of accidents, but surprisingly few fatalities, was contact with a power line. According to an investigation, “When [the worker] reached a position from where the cut was to be made, he drew his saw from its holster. As he did so, he slipped slightly and involuntarily jerked his right hand, holding the saw, to obtain a better grip. The upward swing brought the end of the saw blade into contact with a 5,000-volt primary conductor. His finger touched one of the screws in the saw handle. He had a bad burn on the first finger of his right hand [and] a slight burn on the middle finger of his left hand” (Kiplinger 1938).
The third most common cause of accidents was struck-bys—which is one of the most common accidents today. The fourth, rarer today, was a fall from a ladder.
McGarry (1962) reported that, according to his classification system, there were less than a dozen types of accidents, and, of that number, eight accounted for at least 75 percent of the total. Those eight were falls to a lower level; falls to the same level; caught in or on something or between objects; striking against something; being struck by something; overexerting oneself; coming in contact with electrical current; and poisoning from chemicals or plants by ingestion, inhalation, or absorption.
Rules were in place then, as now, to reduce accidents. Common rules at the time included giving warning before dropping a branch from a tree, lowering branches with a line, and doing a pre-work inspection and briefing. Good rules then and now—but a common reason for an accident was failure to observe rules or instructions.
Worker attitude has always been a factor in accidents. We have come a long way toward improving tools and techniques, but we have not changed attitude as much. Tree work has become viewed as a profession rather than a temporary trade, but there still are many who disregard safety rules. Some companies and municipalities have trouble getting workers to wear hard hats or helmets at the work site and chaps while operating chain saws on the ground. These items of personal protective equipment have been around for decades.
“Never been a surplus of tree men,” was a comment made by Lamb (1962) about why companies were reluctant to enforce rules and willing to put up with the antics of workers. There have always been some tree workers who revel in the risks associated with their environment, pushing the limits in their exposure to danger. The issue of safety behavior is still one that needs to be addressed.
Kiplinger (1938) describes an accident caused by such an attitude: “A.M. was the grandstand and show-off type, making needless swings and even standing on his hands 60 feet up for the edification of the young ladies. He used to ridicule the inspector, who insisted on safety measures. No one knows exactly what happened. His ground men had gone to sharpen some tools, which should have been taken care of night before, and found him later, on the sidewalk.”
Aerial lifts were a quantum leap in technology for accessing and working in a tree canopy. No longer was aerial work dependent on ropes and ladders. Now a tree worker could safely move through the tree without such a high risk of falling. The reduced risk was initially true, and it was reported by one large company that their lift-equipped crews experienced 25 percent fewer accidents than that of their climbing crews (Herder 1972).
However, some saw this pattern reverse over time. “Almost every week, we hear of a tree worker severely hurt or killed in or on a bucket truck (Shearer 1965).
What was the reason for this trend? Lack of maintenance on the lifts and failure to perform the daily inspection were common reasons given for the increase in aerial lift accidents in earlier times. This is still true today and is one of the major reasons for accidents involving aerial lifts. Failures involving frayed cables that snap, rusted turret bolts that shear off, and cylinders that rupture appear on recent accident investigation reports of incidents involving aerial lifts. Then, as now, maintaining the truck and lift and not using them beyond the capability of the equipment are rules to follow.
The other reason given for the increase in aerial lift accidents was lack of training. Workers were not being trained in the inspection and operation of these complicated machines. Training—specifically the lack of it or the quality of it—has always been a critical issue in safety. One of the most persistent concerns, dating back more than half a century, was to the issue of training. This concern was summed up accurately and precisely by Karl Kuemmerling: “We were not teaching properly” (1948). He pointed out, as have others over the years, that merely knowing the material does not make a good teacher; you have to be able to convey the material and know when it has been understood by the student.
Kuemmerling explained that, to be effective, you have to explain and demonstrate a technique and have the student repeat it, and continue to repeat it, until he or she has it right. This is still one of the greatest failures of our industry safety training. Everyone knows the joke about what it takes to be an arborist—a pickup truck and a chain saw. What does it take to be an arborist safety trainer? Nothing. We are one of the few industries that do not establish any qualifications for a trainer. Anyone, regardless of knowledge or ability to convey that knowledge, can be a trainer.
Our industry began the past century as one of the most high-risk professions, and we began this century still on that list. It would be nice if a century from now (preferably sooner), his situation would change for the better. Tree work will always involve some risk, of course. Trees always have been and always will be large, heavy objects whose care requires workers to be exposed to heights and power equipment. We have safer equipment than ever before, and, with better training and a safety attitude, we can do much to lower the risk to our profession.
The ANSI Z133.1 safety standard was developed in response to concerns about safety in the profession. The Accredited Standards Committee Z133 was organized on April 4, 1968, as a result of efforts by Mrs. Ethel M. Hugg of Johnstown, New York, whose son had died in a tree trimming accident. Mrs. Hugg spearheaded an attempt to initiate safety measures to make tree work safer. Former ISA presidents Gordon King and Richard Abbott served as chairs of the first committee.
The first Z133 safety standard was published in 1972. The Z133 committee currently is preparing the latest version of the standard, to be released in 2006.
References
Herder, R. 1972. Safe operation of the aerial device. Arborist’s News 48(5):37–38.
Kiplinger, W.C. 1938. Tree Surgery. Division of Education, Correspondence Study Department, Ann Arbor, MI.
Kuemmerling, K. 1948. Safety for the arborist, pp. 33–38. In Tilford, P.E. (Ed.). Proceedings of the 24th National Shade Tree Conference.
Lamb, C. 1962. Safety cents. Arborist’s News 27(11):81–86.
McGarry, G. 1962. Accident prevention methods for the tree industry. Arborist’s News 27(7):65–70.
Shearer, E. 1965. Safety in the field of arboriculture. Arborist’s News 30(10):73–79.
John Ball is a professor of forestry at South Dakota State University, Brookings, South Dakota. Shane Vosberg is a former graduate student in industrial safety at South Dakota State University and now is employed at Swingle’s Tree Care in Denver, Colorado.
Photos courtesy of Randy Harris. |
