Hendrix Fire Chainsaw Cut 2018

The terrain was steep and rocky and the saw teams reported “rocking” their chain several times throughout the course of the day. This made handling the saw more difficult and required more time and effort to complete each cut. The swamper picked up his pace and was working to manipulate the log as the sawyer reentered the kerf to finish the release cut on the bottom of the log. Because the log was partially buried, the swamper lifted and rolled the log back toward himself by pulling back on a branch. It was at this moment that an awkward angle of the saw bar coming out of the kerf resulted in a violent and unanticipated kickback of the chainsaw. Simultaneously to the this kickback occurrence, the swamper reached over the kerf where the saw struck the swamper on his left forearm. The squad leader, now standing just 10 feet away watched this incident as it happened: “I noticed a red mist and saw blood splatter on the front of the swamper's yellow. I knew exactly what had just taken place.”

Hand Crews, Chainsaws, Medevac, RLS, Chainsaw Cut