An accident hides in a little corner
An Accident hides in a little corner.
In the Netherlands we have a saying that goes like; “an accident hides in a little corner”. Liberally translated this means that a small mistake can have big consequences. Well, the following true story came from a corner unimaginable to me.
One sunny pre-covid autumn morning I was asked to reduce a Bald Cypress (Taxodium distichum). The tree is a fine specimen, approx. 20 meters tall and located at the bottom of a gully. There were some shading issues so I was requested to take the top 3 meters off. So, I set a line near the top using a throwline, isolating it somewhat, and with the wrist size top branch the access line was snugly in the branch fork. Perfect! At the base of the tree were some smaller trees, so as opposed tie off the access line around the trunk I chose tie it off to the bottom branch. It was alive and about 25 centimeters in diameter near the trunk, solid as. And made sure that the groundie (also a climber) understood what the two alpine butterfly knots above the base anchor were for. Time to go up! I ascended utilizing a rope wrench, a foot and knee ascender. I carried my double rope climbing line to climb above my anchor point and set a top anchor using a pulley friction saver. While reducing I endeavored to shorten the new top branches, so that the top of tree would look more rounded off as opposed to flat topped, encouraging a more natural look. The last branch that I reduced landed on the one below and got stuck near the end, frustrated I stretched out and tried to dislodge it using my handsaw. The brittle nature of Taxodium wood and the rather flat anchor point, prevented me from releasing the branch. The inner voice was speaking: you are way out of your comfort zone! With these alarm bells ringing I decided to cut the whole branch instead. It was on the backside of the clients view anyways, so no one would even know, right? What the consequence was of this action, I have never witnessed in 20 years of climbing trees. After cutting the already heavy loaded branch, it managed to snag the branch below, causing it to also break and a chain reaction unfolded, breaking every branch on its way down! Disbelief was followed by cursing…
Flustered, I carried on. The last cut was the remaining top in which I was anchored. Pulled my pulley saver and did the final reduction cut. Just below me was my access line with the rope wrench and decided to go down on that, no sense in running the risk of getting your pulley saver stuck. On my way down I tidied up the broken stubs. Reaching the ground, I took my harness of and put my climbing line in its bag. Next was my access line, pushing one of the smaller trees at the base aside to undo the base anchor I encountered this:
More disbelief was followed by cursing…
What happened was that the chain reaction of breaking branches also snapped the bottom branch that my base anchor was tied to! And I came down on this! I never realized this was the case…
Fortunately, it never came to an accident, but an incident that I believe is worth sharing. In my experience it’s these shortcuts that will get you in trouble, eventually. Next time I’ll tie the base anchor right around the trunk, and I hope you will too!