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What is your PPE experiences

Started by Ford_man, November 09, 2014, 08:40:35 AM

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Ford_man

I thought I would start a thread on your experiences with and without PPE.
splitwood_smiley splitwood_smiley

Banjo picker

There is pic. in my gallery showing what cutting with out a hard hat will get you.  I posted a pic. before don't think I'll put it up again.  Banjo
Never explain, your friends don't need it, and your enemies won't believe you any way.

thecfarm

I try to wear what I need for the job I am doing. Be it a chainsaw,trimmer,skill saw.And I look to see what could/will go wrong.
I have been lucky with near misses. I was clearing the grown up pasture with lots of maple trees that had grown 2-3 to clump. Kinda small trees,not much bigger than 8 inches across. I was cutting them down in a clump all day. There was a shed and 2 maples had grown together. One kinda leaned over a shed a little and the other leaned away from the shed. I tried to cut them together. This time they split. The one kinda leaning over the shed,just hit the corner of the roof and came up in the air and hit my arm and send me back on the ground. Lucky for me,the tree missed me and I just had a scratched up arm for a while.
I have seen trees,a few times hit a rock and come up in the air and set over 8-10 feet mighty quick. But I was out of the way this time,by about 40-50 feet.
Model 6020-20hp Manual Thomas bandsaw,TC40A 4wd 40 hp New Holland tractor, 450 Norse Winch, Heatmor 400 OWB,YCC 1978-79

tj240

i am living proof hardhats work. cut a bushy beech with a yellow birchtop in it i couldn't see. i am told i was out of the way but as the tree fell the top swung and bang. dont remember 4 day. spent a week in hospital.  if you cut without a hardhat in my eyes you are foolish. good luck to all and stay safe!!!!
work with my father[jwilly] and my son. we have a 240 tj 160 barko[old] works great three generations working together

lopet

I never work in the woods without a hardhat or without gloves when running a chainsaw. Cutting pants 95 % of the time.
Only on the landing I am cheating a bit sometimes without them and also just wearing a headset. Also I am not getting much use of the face shield, it just gets in the way most of the time but leave it on for the odd situations.
Quite often I hear from some hobby cutters and weekend guys that they're not comfortable with all that stuff wearing.         
I am so used to it wearing it and I am not even comfortable without it and would recommend it to everyone. It's not a guarantee  for not getting hurt, but it reduces the risk a lot.
Knock on wood, it has worked for me for forty years now.
Make sure you know how to fall properly when you fall and as to not hurt anyone around you.
Also remember, it's not the fall what hurts, its the sudden stop. !!

KyLogger

I have got an $1,800 scar on my left thigh, to prove that chaps should be worn! I could have bought 18 pairs of chaps (enough to last me to retirement) for that price! I wear a tin lid as well, sure saved my bacon when a big honkin grapevine came from somewhere up above!

Tom
I only work old iron because I secretly have a love affair with my service truck!

luvmexfood

Some of you may have read my thread stupidity switch. Was skidding and a sappling switched my head pretty good.

Well was skidding again the other day and for some reason left my hardhat on. Think maybe because it was a little chilly and the ear muffs felt good on my ears. Anyway, log rolled over and caught a bigger sapling and wham again. This time I had my hardhat on so my noggin was safe but the shoulders got a good switching.
Give me a new saw chain and I can find you a rock in a heartbeat.

lopet

It's time to leave that darn switch in the " off " position ;D
Make sure you know how to fall properly when you fall and as to not hurt anyone around you.
Also remember, it's not the fall what hurts, its the sudden stop. !!

Ken

I have been hit in the head before and knew full well that without a hard hat it could have been very serious.  Safety pants are worth their weight in gold.
Lots of toys for working in the bush

luvmexfood

Quote from: lopet on November 09, 2014, 02:11:18 PM
It's time to leave that darn switch in the " off " position ;D

Amen. Was standing sizing up a tree when all the sudden a dead limb fell about 4 ft. from me. Ordered a hard hat that night.

You never know. Locally about 3 weeks ago a dad took his two young teenagers hunting. They just sat down to rest when a dead tree fell hitting his daughter (12 or 13). Medflighted her out but she died in the ER.
Give me a new saw chain and I can find you a rock in a heartbeat.

Corley5

I was hit on the head once upon a time, December of 1988, by a dead elm.  If I had not had my lid on I'd have been dead.  As it was the 7th vertebrae in my neck was fractured, my right shoulder was separated, it took a few stitches to sew the lower part of my right ear lobe back on and my left ankle was sprained.  Otherwise I wasn't hurt too bad.  I wore a neck brace for 12 weeks.  I won't fall timber without a hard hat on.  The impact drove the hardhat's suspension over my ear and when it popped back up it tore my ear lobe.  Small price to pay  :)
Burnt Gunpowder is the Smell Of Freedom

teakwood

I once breaked my leg when a small twistet tree kicked back, costed me 8000$ to make the pins into the bone in a private hospital and 5000$ to get them out 2 years later. I am now a lot more careful where i stand when the trees go down. I always use safety pants, gloves and ear protecion. I can not get used to hardhat because of the tempartures here in Costa Rica, we have between 75 to 95 degrees fahrenheit the whole year, so you get a headache after one hour of using a hat. But the teaktrees dont have dry branches, so not alot of danger from abouve.
National Stihl Timbersports Champion Costa Rica 2018

luvmexfood

Quote from: Corley5 on November 09, 2014, 06:48:03 PM
I was hit on the head once upon a time, December of 1988, by a dead elm.  If I had not had my lid on I'd have been dead.  As it was the 7th vertebrae in my neck was fractured, my right shoulder was separated, it took a few stitches to sew the lower part of my right ear lobe back on and my left ankle was sprained.  Otherwise I wasn't hurt too bad.  I wore a neck brace for 12 weeks.  I won't fall timber without a hard hat on.  The impact drove the hardhat's suspension over my ear and when it popped back up it tore my ear lobe.  Small price to pay  :)

True logger. Broke vertebrae, seperated shoulder, stitches and sprained ankle. "Otherwise I wasn't hurt too bad". Sounds a little bad to me.
Reminds me of the time I had a bunch of green locust sawn up into 5x5 fence posts. BIL and myself were unloading and one rolled over and two came down on top of it breaking two of my fingers. My little finger was sticking out at about a 60 deg angle from what it should have been. Dumb me asked my BIL "do you think its broken"?

Give me a new saw chain and I can find you a rock in a heartbeat.

chester_tree _farmah

Dumb u was probably in shock from seeing your finger at a ninety degree angle so I wouldn't feel dumb one bit! Ouch.
254xp
C4B Can-Car Tree Farmer
Ford 1720 4wd loader hoe

WDH

I have been hit in the head and shoulder by a limb that broke off when felling a tree.  Without the hardhat, I would probably be dead.

Don't risk it.  I see so many people that are using a chainsaw that are "safety stupid". 
Woodmizer LT40HDD35, John Deere 2155, Kubota M5-111, Kubota L2501, Nyle L53 Dehumidification Kiln, and a passion for all things with leafs, twigs, and bark.  hamsleyhardwood.com

Corley5

  I rarely hand cut anymore but had to cut some large sugar maple that were too big for the harvester  8)  I bore cut them and after turning one loose I was backing away and a limb came straight down, big end first, and stuck in the ground where I'd been standing just seconds before.  It was about five feet long and 1 1/2" diam on the big end.  It would've hurt  :)
Burnt Gunpowder is the Smell Of Freedom

Ron Scott

~Ron

curdog

I don't run a saw as much as many folks on here, but I always wear my ppe...... except the one time I had about 4-5 privet bushes that needed to be cut from my fence line.  I figured it would just be a second and no need to go put on chaps for a few bushes that were under 5 feet tall. I got lucky and just got a hole in my pants , small gash on my knee and a lesson learned. I've always heard that complacency kills and I believe it. If I had been cutting into a  30" red oak, I would have been wearing full ppe and thinking through everything I was doing, but I was cutting through privet and got into a hurry. I was very fortunate that I was not really hurt, and I learned my lesson.

CCC4

My PPE is the Rockman premium helmet package and full wrap 9 ply chaps and corks. About 17 years ago I caught the bad end of a cedar limb and now wear a scar (though faded some) from top of my head down my face to my jaw...the jaw part is barely visible but yet it exists. I wasn't wearing a hard hat when the accident occurred. I have one scar from a saw from years ago when cutting in 5* weather on a frozen ERC...limb had pressure and exploded sending saw into my upper calf...no chaps were present.

Things can still happen with PPE though...I have a healing fracture in my left hand from a widow maker 2 months ago. Last year I was cutting and got my jaw broke and knocked clean out from something coming from the side at head level, I was wearing a hard hat but from the angle I got hit the helmet didn't help and was tossed about 12 ft. down the slope.

I am a big fan of PPE however I refuse to where gloves until it is cold enough for your skin to stick to metal....can't stand gloves but sometimes ya can't get away from using them. I don't cut anymore w/o a helmet and 95% of the time I keep my chaps on...anymore I just feel naked w/o them. The ONLY time they come off is during excessive heat in the 100* range with high humidity...it isn't good practice but I was about to heat stroke and going home wasn't an option...so off came the chaps to lessen some weight and get some air while trying to get my day in.

CCC4


Nate379

Couple weeks ago I was showing one of the hired hands how to limb (brand new guy).

Well the log was bound up bad and I didn't even notice.  Cut a branch and the log lauched right into my shin.  About 8" around.  I shrugged it off, kinda angry at myself but holy crap it hurt.  Peeled my skin off and I had blood leaking into my soak.  I had chaps, jeans and long johns on too.

A week days later I went to the ER cause it still hurt, almost felt like my leg was pulling apart when walking. Fractured the tibia.  :(

I guess I have a pretty high pain threshold, several years back I fell from a roof.  Ended up finishing building that building... carrying 70lb bundles of roofing.  Ended up at the hosital 2 weeks later for a routine physical, doc decided to do x-rays when I mentioned the fall.
Broke 2 vertebrae and herniated 3 discs.

And no, it wasn't pleasant, but I didn't figure I had broken bones!

longtime lurker

Haven't had a hardhat prevent my head splitting open for... oh about 2 weeks. :D Chopped a tree down, it landed across another old log that was hidden in the long grass, and when that log went down in the head it came up in the butt, which catapulted a third sapling size thing in at me. Tree I cut went to the right and the sapling came in from the left and banged down fair into the top of my head hard enough to split the (plastic) skid lid. One of those million to one things that you couldn't set up deliberately if you tried. I've always been big on the skid lid though, ever since reading that something like 95% of work related deaths with professional loggers were from falling objects.

Chaps are a bit hit and miss... sometimes I wear them, sometimes I don't. Never been close to an leg injury from a saw, but a lot of thats probably that I run saws big enough that kickback is less of an issue. I have an exemption from wearing them actually - lot of pro loggers around here do - as its considered that the risk of the chaps tangling on vines as your trying to leave the stump area are greater then the risk of leg injury. Leg injuries mightkill you.... being caught up in a vine thats attached to the head of a falling tree will kill you. The joys of working in a jungle.
The quickest way to make a million dollars with a sawmill is to start with two million.

David-L

Chaps, helmet and most of all a tree at a 45 degree angle you can get behind when the tree you just cut is on it's way down. Some say don''t look and others do. I have always looked and yes stuff does fly back at you and fast sometimes. when that happens I was glad to be behind a tree that was a planned escape route. My .02 cents.

                                   David l
In two days from now, tomorrow will be yesterday.

BargeMonkey

 Its not broken till the bones sticking out.  :D   
Chaps are a 100% thing for me, I dont usually skid with a hard hat but will wear it when around the cutter. Knock on wood ive been very lucky in the woods. Broken both legs, both ankles. Collarbone+ shoulder still isnt right, jaw + nose, 2 skin grafts and around 300 stitches / staples so far. Oh, and 9 -3/4 fingers left.
Complacency kills. You can only push so hard before you forget something and its all over. Been roughly 1 guy killed in our area per yr in the woods. If its going to happen at least make it quick, the idea of freezing to death before you bleed to death doesnt do it for me.

Corley5

We shouldn't work alone either but we all do at times.  Someone needs to know where we're at.
Burnt Gunpowder is the Smell Of Freedom

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