Dangerous saw

[John Rumm]

Still a hell of a job trying to get through a neck with a hedge trimmer I would have though?

[charles]

I can see that it could break someone's neck, though

[Tim+]

Um, given the tooth spacing of a hedge trimmer bar, I would have said ?impossible?. Of course, like many urban legends, the story has probably got distorted and it may not have been a hedge trimmer.

Tim

[Jethro_uk]

Not really. It was a news story from a few years back as I remember it.

[Chris J Dixon]

I reckon that those pole-mounted chainsaws could have some hazards.

Chris

[Dave Liquorice]

yourself.

<google> Trimming hedge with chain saw, up step ladders, puppy chasing ball, knocked off ladder, didn't quite decapitate the lady holding step ladder. Quite possible that the saw was under power, even if the throttle had been released it'd still be running down.

[Dave Liquorice]

reciprocating

Must admit I had my doubts as well.

But given the hint of a news story google finds both initial reports of the accident and of the coroner's inquest. It was a chain saw.

[Chris Bacon]

This from 2009:

(Metro) "Alastair Green suffered horrific injuries as he tried to use an angle grinder to remove a tree stump in the garden of his home in Market Harborough, Leicestershire"

He'd fitted a circulaw saw to it. It killed him, apparently after a kickback.

[newshound]

Not so likely, but it would only have to nick the carotid artery. There was a fatality locally a few years ago involving cutting logs with a tractor driven circular saw, that was caused by severing an artery.

[Brian Gaff (Sofa]

Well, what a pratt is all I'd say. I hated the drill attached circular saw I had for my black and Decker, it had a guide, but was unwieldy in us and easy to let go of with the lock on button pressed in. Brian

[Andrew]

A bloke in Hove, or somewhere on the South Coast was trimming a tree in the font garden from a ladder which wifey was holding to 'steady it'. He dropped the chain saw on her and killed poor lady.

[Mark]

I've actually witnessed two people die in front of me from chainsaw accidents. and almost killed myself with a pencil You sometimes dont get any warning when your time on earth is about to be end

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[RayL12]

Is it any more valuable anywhere else?

[RayL12]

Our Stihl hedge trimmers would often make a mess of the bark of trunk when the noobs got clumsy. I can easily imagine a neck getting mangled in the right circumstances.

[RayL12]

In my experience of using Stihl saws and circular cutters, the problem is drag. Anyone using a forward, including upward, cutting motion invites runaway.

As shown on tv, one young lad, with face protection, using a hand grinder with 6in blade, demonstrated an upward cut that got away, ran up the wall, back along an upper edge and back down his face.

[John Rumm]

That is still a very long way from "decapitated" though - especially with a falling trimmer rather than one being held in place against the thing you are attempting to cut (or at least "nibble" your way though)

[The Natural Philosopher]

I've cut myself with a hedgetrimmer. It makes a mess, but it doesn't go deep. It's designed *not* to. A finger? yes, A neck, No!

[Chris Green]

Yes, I rememeber the story.

It's an absolute "no no" to use a chainsaw up a ladder. I use a chainsaw quite frequently but never, never up a ladder. You need lots of protective gear, lots of training and proper 'get you up the tree' gear to work with a chainsaw off the ground.

[Chris J Dixon]

As I know I have posted before:

A neighbour of mine, after having been ripped off by itinerants (they had invented a story that there had been complaints, and he had to let them do the work) who left him with unbelievably mangled eyesores of trees, plus all the trimmings for him to dispose of, apparently went with a garden landscape firm to clear the lot, and give the plot a bit of a makeover.

They had a reasonably large conifer to bring down, without room to drop it in one. I saw no goggles, ear defenders, or safety clothing in evidence whilst using a chain saw. An extended sectional ladder rested against the tree, but wasn't secured to it. There was some form of primitive personal safety loop, but it was only clipped to the ladder, the top rung of which rested insecurely against the curve of the trunk.

As they worked down from the top, the chain saw was deployed at about head height but, having no goggles, the operator was showered with sawdust and had to look away from the cut. Meanwhile the second man had to leave his position footing the ladder to heave on the rope hoping to persuade the section to fall the right way. Occasionally he was successful.

To my surprise they survived, but that is simply not the way to do it. At almost every stage they progressed in such a tentative way, that it seemed to me that they were way out of their depth.

Had I not been recuperating after a minor op at the time, I would probably have tried to intervene.

Chris

[NY]

I had to prune and remove a lot of trees and ground-covering conifers when we moved to our new house. The first ones I did with a bushman's saw (hard work when the blade binds every few strokes); the nest ones I did with an mains-powered reciprocating saw (very slow, even with the coarsest blade that was supplied); the final ones have been with a battery-powered chainsaw.

I took sensible precautions:

- individually trim every branch off the trunk, making an initial cut on the underside to lessen the chance of the branch ripping off the trunk

- plan my "escape route" in advance for when the branch/trunk starts to bend prior to breaking

- be very cautious as the cut nears completion, watching and feeling for any movement

- having trimmed the branches off, cut the trunk into manageable sections, starting at the top (don't try to fell the whole trunk is one go!) paying particular note of which way I wanted the wood to fall, and cutting opposite that so as to control where it fell

The most recent work was a willow tree that had fallen across the stream at the bottom of our garden; some of its branches were collecting vegetation washed down by the stream and creating a restriction. The trunk had snapped off and was resting on the root section, supported by side branches in the water. Same policy: cut all the side branches off, leaving the ones in the water till last. Work out which branches were supporting the load, and weaken (but don't entirely cut) those. Then attach a rope and pull the trunk sideways until it "fell off" the root and broke the remaining branches; we managed to make it collapse gently into the stream without much of a splash, so we did it well! Finally we used existing branches to support sections of the main trunk, and shortened it gradually into lengths that could be hauled up the bank of the stream.

A mains-powered saw would have been out of the question since we were standing in water (only a few inches deep - we did it when the stream was very low), so it was useful that the chainsaw is battery (a petrol one would have been just as good, but I HATE the sound of 2-stroke engines revving their guts out and chucking out choking oily smoke). We got into the habit of popping the battery out of the saw every time we'd finished with it, and putting it safely on the bank where it can't roll into the stream, ideally with the blade guard replaced each time.

I measured the thickness of the trunk against the length of the blade, making sure that the blade could cut through the whole trunk without leaving a section beyond the tip of the blade.