I PRAY TO GOD WE NEVER HAVE TO EXPERIENCE AN ACCIDENT LIKE THIS AGAIN

STUMP OF KILLER TREE, ABOUT 40" IN DIAMETER

THE  SHATTERED TRUNK THAT TWISTED...

...AS IT FELL, PINNING JAY AND CRUSHING HIM TO DEATH

Thursday, 8:30 AM.  31 degrees F at the ferry dock, 28 on the back porch.  Wind NNW, calm with light gusts.  The sky is cloudy and overcast, the humidity 75%.  The barometer is steady, at 29.83", predicting mostly the same weather but cooler, in the twenties, in the week ahead.

   We went to visit Jay's widow Carrie yesterday and be as comforting as we could under the tragic circumstances (my good friend and business associate Jay Cablk was killed by a falling cottonwood tree his crew was cutting down on Monday afternoon).

   I could not resist visiting the sight of the accident, in the little community of Highbridge, about 25 miles south of Ashland on State Hwy. 13.  It was a chilling sight, and very easy to for me to reconstruct the accident in my mind while looking at the stump and shattered trunk of the huge cottonwood that took his life.

   By all accounts, an employee was cutting down the tree and got the chain saw stuck while the partially cut trunk was still standing.  When Jay reached in front of the tree to retrieve the saw the tree suddenly fell, twisting as it did so, crushing him to death.  It was a vision that I hope I can keep from reoccurring. 

   There are a few details I should yet like to know, such as how the trunk, that must have weighed twenty tons and was perhaps eighty feet tall, was removed from his body; or did rescuers have to dig his body out from under the trunk.  Or perhaps it bounced upward after killing him and he was not actually pinned at all.

   Today there was a large backhoe working right in the area doing cleanup work.  Why wasn't it used to push the tree over rather than saw it down using a chain saw?  That would have been the safe thing to do, even if the tree had to have been cut partially through, and to hell with a stuck chain saw worth a few hundred bucks.  

   It appears that there was a grove of these huge cottonwoods (they grow larger than oaks and maples) at the site, which was easily accessible to machinery.  What kind of decision was made here, and by whom?

   I would like to know how long it took EMT's to reach the scene, although that is really immaterial, as Jay died instantly.

   But enough of Monday morning quarterbacking. A good man is dead,  a young woman bereaved and a young child left fatherless.  Arborist work is physically and mentally challenging and deadly dangerous.  There can be no distractions on the job, no unnecessary conversations or fooling around, no lack of training or discipline.
   The memorial service has been set for 1:00 PM Saturday at the Bayfield Pavilion.  Unfortunately we need to be in Milwaukee for a family 70th wedding anniversary, but will be in Bayfield in spirit.

   I pray to God we  never have to experience an accident like this again.