I finally had a climbing line snap on me during a removal

It happened about two weeks ago on a big silver maple removal in the south part of town. I was about 35 feet up, making my final cut on a large limb, when my main climbing line just gave way. It wasn't a clean break, more of a frayed snap about six feet above my hitch. I had inspected it that morning, but I must have missed some internal damage from a previous job. I dropped maybe eight feet before my secondary lanyard caught me, which was a real gut punch. My ground guy saw it happen and had the bucket truck moving before I even shouted. We got the tree down safely, but my hands wouldn't stop shaking for an hour. I'm now checking every inch of rope under a bright light before it even goes in the truck. Has anyone else had a rope fail without obvious external wear?

2 comments

2 Comments

casey_lane7315d ago

What kind of rope was it?

morgan51215d ago

Wait, did you mean to ask me? I mean, I didn't say anything about rope. Maybe you're mixing up the threads? I just saw your post and got a little confused.