Landscaping – Walking surface awareness Fatality File

Twenty-seven-year-old Tree-care Worker Killed by Falling Branch

A 27-year-old ground crewman at a tree care company was struck and killed by a 38-pound cut branch. On the day of the incident, the decedent and two other workers were felling an approximately 80-foot-tall ash tree on a farm in northern New Jersey. One worker was cutting branches from about 60 feet up in the tree and the other two workers were on the ground using chainsaws and a woodchipper to process felled branches. The worker in the tree signaled to the two below that a branch was about to be cut (free-fall cut, not a controlled descent). Both ground crew members were standing near the chipper and had acknowledged the signal. For an unknown reason, one of the ground crew members began walking towards the drop zone and was struck and killed by the falling branch.

Source: Stacks.cdc.gov