Great piece, many of the safety problems are relevant to tree climbers ie: fatigue factor, gear inspection, correct or incorrect usage/knowledge of gear.
-AJ

Yeah, all except the part about the frequency of accidents, free climbing, and deaths.

Luckily rec climbers aren't climbing under heavy deadline pressure from thrice removed communications mega-corporations!

Tree work and forestry industry climbers have a high rate of accidents, injuries and death, they have the "time is money, get 'er done" pressure and everything negative for safety that comes with it.
-AJ

Overheard example of intense rec climber pressure to perform:

"Jeez, you've been throwing at that tree for two hours now, are we gonna climb today?

"Naah, probably not, great throwing and line de-tangling practice though"

"Ya, you're right about that, I'm takin' a nap"

"Great idea, I'll wake you up when I get all 6 of my throwbags unstuck"

All dialog guaranteed... sort of true.
-AJ

Maybe I'm wrong, but I don't perceive treework as one of the more dangerous jobs. I read about the deaths each month in the TCIA mag, but for all the arborists out there pruning trees, the number seems small. I just don't hear about a lot of arborists falling out of trees.

Logging dangerous? yes.

Rec climbing still seems pretty safe to me, as well. How many rec climbers died last year? Anybody here know anyone who did? Yes, it is inherently dangerous, if you don't follow basic safety protocol. But so is driving on the interstate, if you're drunk.

Same with rock climbing. Just went to Yosemite last week. That climbing seems incredibly dangerous!! But people are just not falling off the rocks like flies. Drove from Portland to LA two weeks ago. From about Fresno into LA was like a video game. I was doing 80 and getting passed right and left, with people cutting in and out and riding inches from your rear bumper. That's dangerous to me! But I didn't see a wreck the whole trip.

This is all I could find on stats:
http://economix.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/ ... n-america/

I agree Bob. It's stuff like this (salient quotes from the article):

"...the job tends to attracts low-skilled, thrill-seeking workers who are willing to put their safety on the line for as little as $10 an hour..."

"...received almost no training and had marijuana in his system at the time of the accident, but what ultimately sealed his fate was a piece of faulty equipment: a broken hook missing its safety latch."

"...workers will often “free climb” without ropes...."

that makes this line of work an accident waiting to happen. Reckless driving would produce the same risk.

The data cited above for most dangerous occupations uses "fatalities per 100,00" in 2009, the data below uses "fatalities per year" in "tree care operations":

http://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/preview/mmwrhtml/mm5815a2.htm

Between 1997 and 2007 there were an average of 80 fatalities per year, 44% of the fatalities occurred at residential properties, 44% of decedents were either trimming or pruning a tree when they were injured, and 23% were involved in tree felling (not logging, tree felling as part of "tree care" operations).

I don't know how this compares to the "the most dangerous" occupations but working climbers have high levels of risk to contend with in their daily jobs. By definition they are constantly working on diseased and compromised trees, and often around powerlines. They don't have the luxury to choose the most healthy and structurally sound trees and the most safe locations to climb. Additionally hand saws and chainsaws provide a constant risk of serious injury for even the most experienced and capable workers.

The tree care industry has traditionally utilized and/or attracted individuals who generally have a high-risk personality type. This is changing with modern safety and technical innovations, better training and "cultural" changes in the industry.

Drug and alcohol use has always been a background problem in the tree care industry, goes with the territory (high-risk personality type).

Many younger pro climbers I've talked to complain about tree care business owners/managers who do things the "old way" and pressure them to take shortcuts and use unsafe technique to improve production.

Bringing it back to rec climbers, I think the lessons from the tower industry that we can learn from are:
1. Seriously respecting the effects of fatigue on critical decision-making or how fatigue can contribute to "minor" mistakes which can blow up on you.
2. Learning not to put pressure on yourself based on real or perceived expectations of others (one of the biggest causes of air travel industry accidents from mechanics to pilots, ask me about it sometime).
3. Intoxicants and climbing don't mix, if you're not there 100% cognitively you're asking for trouble.

-AJ

The point remains that a good bit of the 'danger' of the job is attitude and lack of training. I know one arborist that has been in the business over 30 years and only had one accident.

I've see arborist do unsafe things. Of all the tree work I've seen done, and it's quite a bit, I have yet to see the 'cutter' wearing a helmet, or eye protection, or ear protection, or have a second tie in when using a chain saw. I don't think that's atypical.

I was talking to one arborist and they get their climbing ropes from Ace Hardware - really that's what he said.

When you put all that together, it increases the risk of injury or worse dramatically. I think if we could see the stats that reflect accidents where all safety protocols were in place, we'd see an entirely different picture.