Injuries on feller-buncher/grapple skidder logging operations in the southeastern United States

A random sample of injuries to employees of feller-buncher/grapple skidder operations in the piedmont and coastal plain regions of the South was drawn from the 1997 claims records of three cooperating workers compensation insurance providers. Additional information was also provided on equipment, labor and operations for each firm reporting an injury. The data were entered into a computer database management program for sorting and analysis. Results indicated that manual chain saw delimbing is the most hazardous job on "partially mechanized" operations, where delimbing is performed manually with chain saws, while equipment maintenance and repair is most hazardous on "fully mechanized" firms that employ mechanical delimbing. Even on fully mechanized operations, however, a substantial number of injuries occur when various employees attempt to manually fell or delimb the occasional oversize or difficult-to-access tree that cannot be processed by a machine. A significant number of equipment operators are injured while simply mounting or dismounting their machine; workers with less than I year of experience are much more likely to incur an injury than more experienced employees.