ROCKMAN wrote:Hman - Exactly. And I wonder how many of those accidents are a result of the corporate culture attitude: "If you don't cut faster I'll give your job to someone who will".
Actually, as far as taking "short-cuts", it's as much personal greed as corporate culture. Many of the fallers (about the most skilled/dangerous job in the woods) are independent contractors and paid by the board-foot of cut timber. They are their own boss and take their own risks. Cut more board-feet per day, make more money. Many of the buckers (who cut off the tree limbs after the tree has been felled and cut ("buck") the trunk into 20' or 40' logs)_ and choker-setters (who put the cable loops ("chokers") around the bucked logs so they can be hauled out to the log deck by a high-line, cat, or skidder) may work for the faller, but frequently are also paid piece-rate. But they don't have as much control over the production as they can't buck or set the chokers on trees that aren't down on the ground.
But avoiding greed/short-cuts only can make things so safe. Cutting down and cutting up big, heavy, tall, live things on steep ground, with in all kinds of weather, using powerful, heavy, razor-sharp tools - every precaution only improves your odds. Sometimes bad things happen and a 10-ton 200-foot-tall tree falling onto or rolling over a 180 pound body, you know what the physics add up to.
There are so many who see loggers as evil incarnate. I've known a lot of loggers, though, and watched first-hand as they plied their craft. I have nothing but fierce admiration for them and always try to remember the skilled risk-takers behind every 2x4 I pick up at Home Depot.
The story is just same same out in the oil-patch. As Deepwater Horizon graphically reminds us.