Month: June 2014

I would like to clarify a couple of points about yesterday’s Near Wotsit post:

1. The incident last week was very clearly an accident, plain and straightforward, no one even considered calling it a near accident/ miss. It was serious and we were very lucky that as little happened as did.
2. I have never swung a one ton lump of wood 10cm past a carport with a 380k fully pimped-up Lamborghini Aventador LP700-4 Roadster parked in it. Never a Lambo. Other brands, maybe, but never that. 😉

On a more serious note, I was thinking about what I wrote yesterday, about how I felt the term near accident was preferable to near miss, but actually realized that I am not even sure about that.

The Oxford Dictionary of English’s definition of an accident is:

1. An unfortunate incident that happens unexpectedly and unintentionally, typically resulting in damage or injury

Apart from the element of surprise and lack of intent, first and foremost, an accident represents a system failure. You are no longer in control and the the safety mechanisms of the system(s) you put in place (be this a climbing or rigging system, your traffic management system, a crane or a MEWP…) has failed and no longer performs its intended function. Considering an accident this way raises the question whether an near accident is actually possible.

This reminded me of what Clifford W. Ashley wrote in his book, The Ashley Book of Knots on the correct tying of knots:

A knot is never “nearly right”; it is either exactly right or it is hopelessly wrong, one or the other; there is nothing in between. This is not the impossibly high standard of the idealist, it is a mere fact for the realist to face.

So, if Ashley’s standard is applied to work at height, or any activity entailing risk come to that, then either you perform the task correctly – or hopelessly wrong. And if there is nothing in between, that also makes the terms near miss or near accident, whichever one you choose to use, obsolete. Either everything goes to plan, which is obviously the desirable outcome. Or things do no go to plan, then the situation evolves into an incident and if that incident incurs a system failure we are dealing with an accident, which may lead to injury or damage to a person or an object, but does not have to in order to qualify as an accident.

The point I am trying to get to is that maybe the psychological loopholes and backdoors I mentioned in yesterday’s post in how we refer to these incidents go deeper. By referring to something as a near miss or accident we are de facto belittling it and again changing our mental level of acceptance for it and influencing our ability to recognize it as what may be the start of a chain of events that could ultimately lead to a system failure.

So maybe this traffic light only has a green and a red light? Right or wrong, black or white, yin or yang, cake or death!… Whoops, sorry, spun out of control there for a moment.

Looking at things from this angle creates a strong incentive to get things right. Not more or less right, but spot on. Or, if you are lacking a skill, competences or tools to perform the job correctly, to remedy the situation before continuing – rather than to fudge it. Because, again following Ashley’s lead, this would mean that you are not doing the job half-right, but rather hopelessly wrong. And that can then paves the road towards incidents, accidents and/ or system failures.

Yes, it was a big tree today and I had lots of time and head space to think…

I was thinking about this during work today and thinking back to the incident I described in the a wake up call post last week.

Sometimes things go wrong, take an unexpected turn or do not go as you expected: A cyclist swerving round the cones you put up, a limb failing without warning, the angry pedestrian who insists on walking under the tree you are working on, the stub ricocheting off the stem, the telephone cable you oversaw – the list goes on and on.

Usually nothing happens. Sometimes we have close calls.

Then we say things like…

“Wow, that was close, that was a near miss!”

Which got me wondering… and my conclusion was that either I am missing the point – or the term near miss is a gross misnomer.

Let’s think about this: A near miss implies that you almost missed, but did not. Surely then, that would imply that you have hit the target, wouldn’t it? And surely, that is not what we mean when we say things like above – slightly shakily, mind, because we have just swung a one ton lump of wood 10cm past the carport with the tree owner’s 380k fully pimped-up Lamborghini Aventador LP700-4 Roadster parked in it because we misjudged the size of the log and the wraps on the lowering bollard? Eek!

So no, in a nutshell, near miss for me does not really work.

I believe it would be more appropriate to refer to such incidents as an almost accident. After all, that is what it is in German, ein Beinahe-Unfall, or in French, where they talk about un presque-accident. 

It is important that we understand that these incidents we refer to as near misses are in reality accidents that did not incur damage to a person or an object. Looking at it that way, it also changes ones perception. I am sure we are all in agreement that it is a good idea to prevent accidents from happening. However, if we create psychological loopholes or back doors for ourselves when discussing these incidents, by even avoiding the use of the icky a-word and rather calling it a near miss – because I believe this is what we are doing – , then the behavior leading to these kinds of situations becomes more acceptable, or at least the indication of danger is less strong – and also the incentive to modify it.

Like Al Shigo used to say, let’s call things by their correct names. Let’s call near misses what they are in actual fact, which is accidents in which no one got hurt or anything damaged – and let’s do something about it to prevent this from happening in the future.

Or did it?

Statements like this always makes me wonder, especially when talking about ascent techniques. How long do you spend per day ascending into trees? If I had to guess, maybe about a minute per ascent, let’s say two to be on the safe side and then call it four ascents, which seems reasonable – if you’re not cone picking or the like. So that makes a total of about eight minutes ascending. In terms of exposure time this does not seem terribly long.

So that makes me wonder whether it really is quite that easy or whether it is the whole story.

Don’t get me wrong. I’m not arguing this from a pro-footlock position. I am all for improving the ergonomics of how we work, but feel it is important that we don’t stigmatize one technique and turn a blind eye on other practices that are equally bad or even worse with considerably longer exposure times.

Like what?

Well, take harnesses for example. If you look at pics of climbers twenty years ago, one typical thing you will notice is the x-legged stance they are suspended in. This was due to the pressure the harnesses exerted on the hips. I can remember this from my first harness, which was a Willans, this was in 1990, – which did exactly that. I was determined to like the harness, as I thought it was really cool, but in reality hanging in free space was actually quite uncomfortable, with lots of pressure on the hips that really squeezed your legs together. One of the things people did to reduce this pressure was to use rigid spreader bars between the attachment points.

So I think ill-adjusted harnesses and non-ergonomic harness design are one of the factors that take its toll over the years.

Another one is working on spikes. My experience working on spikes is that, especially in hard woods, you have quite high impacts when inserting the spikes into the wood and also when using long spikes you are creating a long lever arm, pivoting over the spike to the shaft and acting upon the knee. Conceivably over the years this may well be a factor in wear and tear to the knees and hips. It’ll be interesting to see in what direction the design of climbing spikes will develop in the future and whether they will take the body shape into account to a higher degree… we shall see.

Blunt cutting tools, e.g. handsaws is another one. Or one-handed use of top-handle chainsaws. Apart for obvious reasons why this is not a very good idea (despite what other people may tell you, putting you had in a running chain is messy. Been doing it for years and nothing has ever happened? Only has to happen once… Keep both hands on the saw and you have greatly reduced this risk), there is also the issue of long-term damage, such as wear and tear to the carpal tunnel and/ or tendonitis.

One interesting realization for me was understanding the difference between Repetitive Strain Injuries (RSI) and Musculoskeletal Disorders (MSD). Thanks, Yvonne, for pointing this one out to me.

Here is a definition of the two conditions:

Musculoskeletal disorders (MSDs) are injuries or disorders of the muscles, nerves, tendons, joints, cartilage, an disorders of the nerves, tendons, muscles and supporting structures of the upper and lower limbs, neck, and lower back that are caused, precipitated or exacerbated by sudden exertion or prolonged exposure to physical factors such as repetition, force, vibration, or awkward posture.

Repetitive strain injury (RSI) is a condition where pain and other symptoms occur in an area of the body which has done repetitive tasks (often the arms or hands). Repetitive strain means strain related to actions which are frequently repeated.

Without claiming to understand this all in great detail, I did however find it interesting to understand that we are dealing, speaking in general terms, with MSDs rather than RSIs, which are quite specific to very repetitive motions, such a clicking a mouse when working with a computer or similar activities. The type of long-term damage that may occur linked to tree work is probably in the more general MSD group.

For more information on this topic, a good starting point is the dedicated website of the UK’s Health and Safety Executive.

One of the difficulties in these discussions is that we have no control groups.

When considering long-term wear and tear it is essential to take a holistic view, which includes what this person did – and does – before and besides tree work. Maybe someone now working as an arborist started up as a landscape gardner and damaged his back carrying around heavy paving stones – and maybe another person was a very keen cyclist or weight lifter in younger years and used to train very hard for their sport, incurring wear and tear along the way. These persons may now be convinced that they are suffering from conditions caused by their professional life, when in actual fact the truth is more complex – and the seeds of the damage were planted long before they even considered a career in arboriculture.

Personally, and I have written this before, I find it all comes down to balance. This involves many aspects of my life, such as diet, lifestyle, emotional form, physical as well as intellectual stimulus etc. Time and again I come back to climbing and just love it, I find there is nothing better to get me feeling balanced and physically at ease. I am not saying that it’s money easily earned, tree work is physically demanding, but by getting exercise besides work you can compensate for some of the strains.

I find regular stretching morning and evening helpful, also I have found exercise on a rowing machine, such as the Concept 2 machines, builds core stability and musculature useful to counteract niggles in the lower back. Exercising on a rowing machine works well for me, it’s low impact and gets all major muscle groups working – and you go as hard as you want. In the same line, I find body-weight training, with devices like TRX,  a good tool to work on specific ailments, like when I damaged the right rotator cuff in my shoulder. Or to sort out the residual stiffness in my foot/ ankle area years after having fractured it in a fall. Or just for an all round work-out to straighten out my body after a day of funky work positioning.

But again, these are merely solutions that I have found work well for me – I am not generalizing by any means. After all, I am stuck with the body I have, with its specific strengths and weaknesses: All my childhood and youth I used to train for competitive swimming, which I believe developed certain muscle groups that later in life served me well for climbing, but on the other hand, I also know that my lower back is prone to stiffness  and is not super-flexible and my knees are also something that over the years have been an issue. I bear these points in mind in the ways in which I work. So based on my history, I have found the strategies I discussed above to be viable solutions, but they may well not be applicable to somebody else with a different biography (and body) – the good news is it is not rocket science to give these matters some thought – and to find out what works for you.

Yes, my injuries I described above were caused by tree work. But I feel it is important that we understand that we are responsible for our bodies and can do something about it to ensure that we don’t wear it out unnecessarily and prematurely, after all, it has to last you a lifetime! I believe if you are able to listen to the needs of your body, to compensate for strains that your professional life brings with it and don’t regularly overdo things, that working as a arborist need not be more harmful that working in an office. In fact… au contraire! A low-activity, sedentary lifestyle with little exercise and highly repetitive work processes is proven to be highly harmful.

I am looking forwards to the findings of a number of studies that various people are conducting in different countries around the world which are looking at different aspects of this topic.