Tree cutting accident

[Cat_Driver]

Be careful out their guys when working around trees. Neighbor and customer of mine was air lifted to a trauma center after having a widow maker hit him in the head while cutting firewood. Don't know many details at this point.

Even though cutting a tree should be as easy as 1,2,3. I'll admit there have been a few that scared me and I called in a pro even though I had better cutting equipment than he had. It was worth the price. Sometimes as men, we need to step back even though we're capable we need to call a professional. Nothing is worth your life, or limb to save a few dollars.

 

[Rockbadchild]

its not only the decibel level it the combination of time and decibel, shorter the time higher the decibel one can be subjected to or the reverse longer the time smaller the decibel it need to be... people get deaf off their left hear by driving with their window down.

 

[tradosaurus]

I do not understand the need for hearing protection. Maybe it is because I do not have a big saw (Stihl 029). It just isn't loud enough to worry about hearing there are many things I hear every day that are much louder.

Also, when I am out in the forest I like to listen to what is happening - for instance is the wind that I am not feeling on the ground moving the treetops around potentially causing falling limbs or other dangers.

You might want to get your hearing checked for hearing loss.

 

[masscity]

In the 70's I operated a 15 ton P&H Crane(40' boom/25' jib) FWD truck platform with front wheel drive. It had a Chrysler flathead 6 in the crane. In warm weather there was a window on my left that we would take out to get some air. The engine was not loud, but it had a motorcycle throttle and we were constantly up and down with the engine speed.

After a dozen years it ruined about 1/2 my hearing in my left ear, but my right ear is ok.

In the 90's I started operating again, but this time the 23 ton crane had a Detroit Diesel 353, very loud clatter with a blower. One day with that sucker and I stopped at K-mart on the way home and bought some earplugs or I would be completely deaf.

 

[Jstpssng]

If I'm running my saw all day I wear plugs AND muffs, otherwise I will hear it all night long.

I wonder how one of those Corona shirts would protect me when cutting wood.

 

[Creamer]

You might want to get your hearing checked for hearing loss.

I have been hearing tested regularly and no issues. But then I typically do not operate a saw for a long time. Just an hour here and there but my saw is not that loud and yes if it is idling and i am holding it at my side I can hear many things going on with wind in the tree branches above. Now I do not have a high powered saw and do not operate all day long every day - I just cut about six cords of firewood every year and trim a lot of trees around my place.

I have heard other saws and hear other saws operating that are much louder and have much more of a "scream" but those certainly are not mine. I am also around a lot of other noisy equipment for work and am very sensitive to decibel levels. Running a machining and plastic injection molding shop there are lots of noises but when a mill is making a lot of noise we figure out what is wrong and fix it. Some of my people think I am a little nuts when I complain that a mill is making too much noise and state that we need to change it - they say it is just what it is. As an engineer I understand that noise is caused by vibration and vibration is never a good thing as it means lack of smoothness so we need to find the source and remove it.

Now when I used to work in a stamping facility I wore hearing protection - there are some noises that are just too loud. I just believe that a lot can be done to reduce the noise and and some things are falsely blamed for hearing loss.

 

[Creamer]

Yesterday was cool but nice so I took advantage and cut and split about a cord of wood off of my log pile. It has been a while since I split that much wood at once (manual with a 12 lb maul) and it took its toll on me. Of all the injuries what did I get - an approximately 3" piece of firewood rolled off the pile onto my thumbnail and gave me a bloodblister under the nail - nothing big but a little painful and very annoying. No my ears were not ringing and I wasn't wearing ear plugs.

 

[WinterDeere]

No my ears were not ringing and I wasn't wearing ear plugs.

I worked most of my career on large scale high power RF and microwave amplifiers, stuff the size of semi trucks, with tens or hundreds of kilowatts of cooling fans and heat pumps. Some of these amplifiers ran down into single-digit kilohertz territory, and the ferrite cores would just scream, like a billion dog whistles or dying lightbulbs.

My first day in the lab as a young engineer, I remember it driving me up the wall, like a dentists drill going on a tooth for hours on end. At one point I walked from my desk on the far end of this gymnasium-sized lab, over to where one of the old-timers had his head literally inside of an amplifier chassis, with all the ferrites just screaming bloody murder. I asked him how he could stand being that close to that noise, and he said, "what noise?"

When I described it to him, he said something like, "oh yeah, any of us who've been working one this stuff for any amount of time lose our hearing at those frequencies." It was true, there wasn't anyone over 50 in that building who could hear those amps, while they drove the young guys absolutely batty.

Point is, if your ears aren't ringing after a full day of on and off saw usage, it's probably a sign your hearing is already shot, more than anything else. It's okay, hearing loss, or at least some plausible claim to it, can be very handy for any married person.

 

[Creamer]

And my point is that my hearing has been checked for work and it is not damaged.

 

[two_bit_score]

Is that from the ‘company doc’? Just being declared ‘fit for work’ at a particular job may not be the same as having perfect hearing.

I don’t mean to argue with you about your hearing. You are the one who has to be satisfied not me. Understandably, there is skepticism expressed based on other experiences.

Younger people need to be encouraged to protect their hearing.

 

[ArlyA]

Is that from the ‘company doc’? Just being declared ‘fit for work’ at a particular job may not be the same as having perfect hearing.

I don’t mean to argue with you about your hearing. You are the one who has to be satisfied not me. Understandably, there is skepticism expressed based on other experiences.

Younger people need to be encouraged to protect their hearing.

Young and old need to protect one hearing and limbs. I'm skeptical loud machines does not damage some peoples hearing.

 

[MossRoad]

Hearing loss is cumulative.

I sincerely wish that I would have worn more hearing protection in my youth. I used to shoot competitively, operate power equipment, work around jet and piston aircraft, drive loud cars and motorcycles, and, unbelievably... listen to really loud rock music.

I never really noticed it. However, when I started working at the newspaper in 1987, one of the first things they did was test my hearing to get a baseline. I already had significant, measurable hearing loss at age 26. Fortunately, they require hearing protection in all of the production areas and I took advantage of that for the next 30 years. And, they tested hearing and recorded the results every 2 years. So I could monitor any further losses. They were minimal from that point on, but the damage was already done. From that point on I always wore hearing protection at work AND at home when doing anything with elevated noise levels, even if only for a brief amount of time. I have over the head headphones and several bags of foam ear plugs in convenient locations. They are simple to use, you can hear noises around you, they don't cause any discomfort, and there's really no excuse to not use them. Just like safety glasses.

I'll tell you this young folks... once your hearing declines, it never comes back. And if you don't continue to protect it, it'll only get worse.

 

[MossRoad]

... I used to shoot competitively, operate power equipment, work around jet and piston aircraft, drive loud cars and motorcycles, and, unbelievably... listen to really loud rock music.

...

Well, seems like I picked the winners in occupations...

From here:

Are Some People More Prone to Hearing Loss than Others? - Brentwood Hearing Center

We often associate hearing loss with aging, but not everyone who's over a certain age has poor hearing.

brentwoodhearingcenter.com

"avoiding occupations and entertainment which expose your ears to excessive noise, including: rock concerts, sporting events, riding motorcycles, shooting firearms and working around aircraft. Don’t forget to turn the volume down when you listen to music!"

 

[Jstpssng]

I suspect that like anything, some people are affected by loud noises more than others. When we used to use a cordwood saw behind the tractor my father, brother and I all used to wear hearing protection. My BIL didn't. Yet his hearing is better than any of ours. I've had ringing in my ears for as long as I can remember, and certain high pitches really bother my ears. Certain sound systems in the 1980's had a squeal which some people didn't notice; yet would drive me nuts. There was one department store chain which I couldnt even go into, because of the high frequency noise. Riding through my neighborhood or pulling into our driveway I could tell when a TV eas turned on, just from the squeal it emitted.

I learned not to mention it though, as I got tired of all of the smartazz comments about dog whistles.

One convenience store chain has a very obnoxious alarm which goes off every time that the door opens. I mentioned it to a manager once who basically said. "Too bad."
She watched me walk out the door, get into my truck and drive to their competition next door. With the exception of one store which soesnt use the alarm, I haven't done business with that chain since that day... in 20 years.

 

[JamesHW]

I also hear high frequency sounds a lot of people can’t hear and yes, we had a cheap stereo that I couldn’t stand the noise when it was turned on. Funny thing, I went to a bunch of rock concerts including a couple of days in front of the speakers at Woodstock. Later I worked crowd security in front of the stage for a whole passel of bands…The Who, Procul Harem, Led Zeppelin, Spirit, the Dead, Alice Cooper, etc and later did 4 years working as an investigator for a couple of air cargo outfits at SFO spending time around 747 & DC 8 cargo planes (pressure tests for replaced door seals were the loudest). For some reason my hearing was spared.

 

[Creamer]

I am very diligent about wearing hearing protection when things seem loud - like around the stamping presses or other nooisy manufacturing environments. I just do not find my saw very loud. I find it interesting that others do find their saws to be loud. I am not sure why my old saw would quiter than any other saw - it is just a standard saw with the same muffler on it for the last thrity years.

I am very safety conscious of real safety issues but I do think that some people have gone overboard just like they have with safety glasses. There are a lot of manufacturing jobs that there is virtually no risk to the eyes - probably a lot less than a standard kitchen yet safety glasses are automatic. I just wonder if some people have "more robust" hearing in that some things do not bother them as much as other people and if so do we protect to the lowest level out there or do we all draw our own conclusions?

 

[ning]

I have no idea why but I managed to get tinnitus in both ears. Basically I hear high-pressure static all the time. I've usually protected my hearing doing loud things. I did have a ear canal issue for a while which may've had something to do with it all, who knows. Then, having this one straw/twig decoration above our bed on the wall fall down in the middle of the night and score a hole-in-one to puncture my left eardrum - no kidding, not recommended - has also reduced the hearing in the left ear. I'm fine with conversations for the most part, but if I'm lying on my right ear in bed I can't understand my wife's speech from the left ear only now though I can still hear most things well enough.

I used to have super sensitive hearing, I'd hear a high-pitched whine from the dimmer switch that my kids couldn't hear, stuff like that. Always had trouble with noise in restaurants and other crowded areas, so at least my experience with crowds hasn't changed - couldn't hear then because of the jumble of noises, and now there's jumble of noises plus static.

 

[MossRoad]

I have an app called Tone Generator: Audio Sound HZ by TMSOFT on my iPad. You can adjust it from 20HZ to 22,000HZ in 1 HZ increments. Pretty interesting.

I can still hear down to 20HZ. I can hear up to about 11,750 HZ and then it starts dropping off dramatically. Comes back on at 12,100 HZ, and then starts dropping off again. I can notice it up to 20,000 HZ if the room is completely quiet and I have headphones in, but it is so faint that I wouldn't notice it above my tinnitus (which is REALLY loud almost always and at around 5900 HZ today) unless I was specifically testing for it. I really have to listen for anything over about that 12K.

 

[MossRoad]

...Basically I hear high-pressure static all the time. ...

That's a pretty good description of what most people call tinnitus. Most folks that have it report 3000-8000 HZ range. Mine is usually around 5500 to 6000. It's there almost all of the time. If it bothers me at night when I'm wanting to sleep, I just pop in memories of sleep at my parents' house as a kid, with the windows open and the cicadas song at night. I smile and fall asleep pretty quickly.

 

[Jstpssng]

It's not that I can't hear... often I just can't understand especially when there's a lot of background noise.
The first time I took a hearing test was in a soundproof booth at a paper mill. I am relatively sure that some of the things I reacted to were the backup beeper of a nearby forklift or other machine.