The Good, The Bad, and the Ugly

How many tree crews out there could have an on-site safety inspection and come up faultless, perfect in every way. I think not many. I guarantee that if I were to visit a work site of yours without forward warning I could pick upon some areas for improvement and possibly some safety issues as well.

The fact is that none of us are perfect and safety and industry standards are an on-going thing, evolving over time. We are getting better at being safer and meeting industry standards but it will not happen overnight and it shouldn’t. Safety does not have an end. It is a constant process of improvement and many companies are at different levels of improvement.

There is a time lapse between the implementation of a safe work practice and the industry accepting it and using it on a daily basis. This lapse time can be years in some cases and even then some members of the industry may reject it or have trouble changing.

For example the wearing of helmets during tree work for all crew members seems common sense to me and has been a regulation for many years, but still I see crews that do not own them or crew members that avoid wearing them, so we do have a long way to go.

The fact is that what I see on every day work sites if real life at that moment. Real life in the sense that a lot of these company’s and crews and crew members are evolving, they are improving their safety standards and becoming used to the new rules and the improved personal protective equipment. It just takes time. Most of us want to do the best we can when it comes to safety, staff training and providing personal protective equipment.

When I look back on the relative short time I have spent in the tree industry, I can see an amazing change and I too have had to change with the times and with the new ideas and I think its great.

Some of the areas I feel we can improve on are as follows:-

1. The use of worn, damaged or out of date climbing equipment.
2. Poor or no eye protection when using chainsaws.
3. Inadequate head protection to deal with climbers swings or falls.
4. Underrated ear protection for the noise levels being experienced.
5. Chainsaw pants worn during high risk cutting situations.
6. No dust protection for mouth and nose during large cutting operations.
7. Poor or no signage when working or set up on the road side.
8. No hazard assessment or pre-job plan set up for crews.
9. Poor knowledge of climber rescue and emergency procedures.
10. The use of under skilled labour in hazardous situations.

The trick is to keep improving safety and moving forward. The cost of improving safety is cheap compared to a workers compensation pay out. Safety needs to become second nature and not forces for it to work effectively.

Finding photographs to use in Arbor Age is a nightmare, you can always find something wrong with them. The Australian Arbor Age has a storeroom full of hot pictures sent in by readers that will never appear in the magazine.

The question is should the magazine mask the real world and be seen not to promote bad work practices or a bad image of the industry as shown in some of these photographs. These photographs represent real life and its readers image. These photographs are what I see on job sites, these images projected on a photograph also represent what the public sees as they view your job sites.

I would be interested to hear your views on this topic and to hear if you feel the Arbor Age should show real life or staged and masked images on the industry.

Do you feel that showing only the best work practices will encourage others to adopt these practices and in turn will so speed up the evolution of these practices, especially in outer areas and will also help to bind other states together in similar work practices, or do you feel that to show controversial real life photographs helps to simulate debate on the matter and thus leads to a better understanding of the safe work practices. Should the Australian Arbor Age scrap the title “Hot Pics” and call it “bad work practices” or is it one and the same?

The following photographs are real life and do represent every day work life in the tree industry. These photographs have their good points and some bad points but they definitely do serve an educational purpose and do show the evolution of safe work practices.

Some people may find these photographs to be of great value and others may find them threatening. If your face appears in these photographs and you have a problem with that, I apologise. If you do not have a problem with appearing in these educational images then I thank you.

Photo No 1 Photograph One
This photograph shows you the greater use of helmets and high visibility vests on the work site. Bright coloured helmets and vests also help the climber see ground crew locations. Its also good to see the use of wheel barrows to save back injuries. Please also note the light fitting has been removed and covered to prevent damage. Its worth while noting that the helmets do not have ear muffs attached and that separate ear muffs are used. This can be a sign of part time wearing of helmets.

Photo No 2 Photograph Two
This photograph shows the lack of head protection on one person in the “drop zone” area of the “work zone”. Do not let anyone into the “drop zone” that is unskilled or is missing personal protective equipment. Based on his dress he may be a boss or a home owner and he greatly threatens site safety. Note the use of a lowering device for load management.

Photo No 3 Photograph Three
This photograph shows the use of a fall protection helmet, a hand ascender and a friction saver all items of equipment that aid climbing and improve safety. Also note the use of eye protection. I do have a problem with non locking karabiners on a harness at all. The tendency to use them for body support is too great and they shouldn’t even be used to support a hand saw. Friction savers greatly improve rope life.

Photo No 4
Photograph Four
This photograph shows the importance of a helmet for tree climbers. When working on a dead tree the risk of dead wood breaking off over head is great especially during rigging loads. Also note the use of two points of attachment during cutting and the stable working position of the climber. The climber is also using the climbing rope to its best advantage and transferring body weight to the climbing rope and not the branch. Other risks that exist in this photograph are:-
1. The climbing rope “walking “ out along the near horizontal support branch thus creating a weakness.
2. The branch to be cut may fail back at the trunk causing great load to be placed on the climber. Solution: Clip to a small “weak link” branch or remain unclipped and practice the “isolation principle”.

Photo No 5 Photograph Five
This photograph shows the lowering of a branch from the tree straight into the chipper chute with the aid of four men. Note: Many hands makes light work when it comes to larger logs. We can also see the part use of helmets, vest, ear muff and gloves in this photograph. In a job like this the road is considered part of the ”work zone” and should be sign posted, marked and possible road controls in place.

Photo No 6 Photograph Six
This photograph shows the modern day use of a lowering device to assist with load management and to make the job safer but the operator is very poorly equipped with no helmet, no gloves, and no eye protection. Safety is common sense but it appears common sense is not that common.

We can learn a lot from photographs and they are a valid form of education. We can learn from the good things and also the bad things. A picture tells a thousand stories and there are a lot of stories to be told. Do you have any educational photos you would like to share with the readers of The Australian Arbor Age? Maybe its some one hanging from a crane hook in a vertical 44 gal drum while cutting limbs with a builders circular saw?

Life is too short to be obsessed with rules and regulations but don’t shorten it any more by being dangerous or endangering others.

Next: The Weak Link