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I am so sorry about your nephew. How tragic! Your family must be in shock.
I worked as an RN on a traumatic brain injury unit. After that experience, my husband and I will NEVER go up on a ladder again. I saw too many patients' lives completely and permanently change in a second when they fell off a ladder. Spinal injuries happen that way, too.
I'm more than a little paranoid about basement stairs, too, for the same reason. Just ask my husband how I react if I see him going up or down the stairs without holding on to the railing. Confirming my worst fears, my friend's father died 2 years ago when he fell down the basement stairs.
Can't argue with you, a friend's mother died while coming down a short flight of stairs (split-level home) in the middle of the night, she fell and cracked her skull on a piece of furniture near the bottom - tragic.
Personally, I feel much safer handling a firearm than a chain saw. I cut down a neighbor's tree (two 10" trunks growing from the same base) a couple of years ago, and the job was complicated by utility wires, buildings, and fences. being alone, I used multiple ropes and dead weights to pull the branches in the directions I wanted them to fall and cut in small sections; like with any mechanical process, it's all about controlling risk with foresight and technical knowledge. But you always want to err on the side of caution, as Mother Nature, Physics, and your less-than-perfect ability to properly judge the risks involved and your own level of expertise, can stack up and take you down. You Tube is full of videos of trees being felled on top of houses, industrial chimney demolitions taking out an excavator, etc.
Yeah, cutting down trees or doing high ladder work is almost always more dangerous than typing at your desk. But until you can "Virtual" all of that work, it has to be done by humans using procedures and equipment that carries a certain degree of risk.
. Probably the chain saw hit a snag and the force knocked him off the ladder.
Throw in a six-pack of Coors Light, and that is me....exactly what happened....only 10 feet up, I was lucky, first move was to throw the saw as I was trying to catch myself. Sorry for your loss
My idiot BIL broke both femurs and messed up his feet permanently while doing the same. He was trying to remove a tree branch that was touching his roof. One of many stupid things that he did was to steady himself by placing his left hand on the part of the tree that he was in the process of cutting off. The branch fell and his support went with it. Luckily, he threw the chain saw away from him. But as he fell, he stupidly straightened his legs and braced for impact, totally unlike skydivers who bend their legs when they land. So his femurs and feet took the impact and became crumple zones.
So sorry for your loss.
2 weeks ago, my Dad, 89 was using a pole saw, pruning and tripped over the branches and landed on his back on the concrete. He said "hey google call 911". 8 hours at the hospital with a dislocated right shoulder. Today~~can't move his arm above his elbow. He is very active, custom knife maker, we live on 10 acres, 2 houses, he is very very comfortable with his chain saw. I think I heard him say he will ask for help for pruning
Sand&Salt, I’m sorry to hear about your nephew. The town we moved from in NY recently had a young father electrocuted while cutting limbs after heavy snow. It is so easy to see it happening with hindsight.
I have worked in hospitals and err on the side of caution. I saw too many people with no imagination come through the ER doors. Even with that knowledge, we did some bonehead moves in our younger years with trees, trying to save money. We were lucky.
DH is dialing back some of his activities as he’s realizing he’s not as quite as agile and his reflexes not as sharp as when he was younger. That’s a hard thing to realize and accept. No matter what good shape we may be in, mentally and physically, it’s not as good as when we were younger. What we do have though, is wisdom to have caution, but also the wisdom not to live in total fear.
We were those guys until just recently, rarely with chainsaws but with long ungainly electric trimmers to tall privacy hedges on our property and, until recently, with pole saws to two very tall trees in our garden. Both the trees died and we had them taken out professionally- perhaps the trees died to save us from our foolishness.
As I sit here and type this we right now have a team of workers outside trimming years of growth from hedges, trees and vines all along our perimeter as well as to plant two replacement trees - which will not be getting any trimming from us after perhaps a couple of prunings the first few years. We will be long gone by the time they become very tall and no doubt there will be a foolish amateur tree trimmer risking his life in its future.
I am feeling quite safe and comfortable reading the paper and C-D in my cozy chair and financially fine with shelling out $1200 for all that work and our safety.
1. a doctor told me that 80% of his business came from smoking, drinking, and ladders.
2. i did not follow his advice. while my son held the ladder, i climbed it with my chain saw
to prune a tree. when the main trunk was sawn through, it bucked back to me and knocked
me off the ladder to ground. chain saw still running. my son turned it off. he asked if i was
alright, i said in about a week i will be, but let's not tell Mom about this. still our little secret.
The chain saw was still RUNNING? Don't they have an automatic cut-off when one's hand is not on it?
I just spoke to my sister on Skype and she said it was just a step-ladder. His femoral artery was cut so he bled out (no one was home). So now I'm wondering if it was NOT instant, though she said it was. So if the chain saw was still running...too awful to think about.
He suffered from unrelenting pain due to fibromyalgia and never got relief. Constant back pain. And severe depression. So there was some question of suicide, but the investigative force says no. Being a Christian, my sister says he himself is better off now---no more pain. Just the devastation left behind.
Now we're wondering about survivor benefits, or how that works when the spouse/children are still young (30s). She was able to be a SAHM, amazing in this day and age.
Thanks again for all the condolences. This is where condo living is beneficial---so much support from the community for my sister.
So sorry to hear the sad details. If it's any comfort, if he did cut his femoral artery, he would have lost consciousness pretty quickly and been unaware of what ultimately happened to him.
A lesson to all of us.
I recently paid a professional tree trimmer a couple thousand dollars to take out some trees. He made it look like ballet when he was 60 feet up and the huge branches were loudly thumping to the ground. He and the ground workers seemed to have their timing down perfectly. But I had to stop watching him, knowing that one misstep, one lean too far forward, etc. and he could tumble to his death, traumatic brain injury or spinal cord injury.
The chain saw was still RUNNING? Don't they have an automatic cut-off when one's hand is not on it?
This is true, nothing to trip the Chain Brake. I do appreciate you posting this as a warning to others....safety first, and respect the tool. A pair of Chaps would of made the difference, I do not fire up my saw without them on. After putting a minor cut in my Chaps with an idling saw, I have gotten into the habit of activating the Chain Brake if it's not cutting.....just walking around and losing your footing with an idling Chainsaw could be disastrous. Once again, my condolences.
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If it's any comfort, if he did cut his femoral artery, he would have lost consciousness pretty quickly and been unaware of what ultimately happened to him. 
