Technical Report Assignment: Accident Report at WildTree Forestry Company

You are the site manager at WildTree Forestry Company. Your company cuts down mature trees in northern Ontario; trims the branches; loads the logs onto large logging trucks; and transports them to a pulp and paper company in Dryden, Ontario.

Earlier today, there was an accident. One of your workers was hurt when he was struck by a branch from a tree that was being cut down. You went to where the accident happened, looked over the area, and talked to other workers who had witnessed the accident.

You made some notes, and went back to your office; the notes are below. Now you need to turn these notes into an accident report. Use memo format and address it to Sandra Yakabuski, WildTree’s manager of employee safety. Use the structure outlined in the textbook and summarized in this week’s PowerPoint. When describing the details of the accident, and what happened before and after the accident, use chronological order.

I have attached a rubric that I will use in marking your accident report.

How long should your report be? As long as it needs to be to do the job, but no longer.

•The victim was Brian Liimatainen.

•He is a new employee; he’s been working with WildTree for two weeks and was being trained. As part of his training he was sent out to watch a team of four workers felling trees. This was his fifth day in the field observing.

•He was hit by a branch of a tree that was being cut down. The branch knocked off his hard hat, then hit his shoulder. The team supervisor, Anna Karlsson, rushed over and asked how he was doing. He said that he thought he had broken his collarbone.

•Ms. Karlsson called for an ambulance at 11:45, then called you. The ambulance arrived at 12:15 and took Brian to the hospital in Dryden.

•You arrived at the site at 12:30pm. You inspected the area and the equipment, and interviewed each team member. You got back to your office at 2:15pm. You missed lunch, and are tired and hungry.

•At 2:30pm you called Brian’s father in Thunder Bay, Ontario, to tell him about the accident. He sounded upset, and angry that the company would let his inexperienced son get hurt.

•You called the hospital at 3pm. They told you that Brian’s shoulder was only badly bruised, but that he might have a concussion. They were going to keep him in hospital under observation overnight.

•The team arrived at the site at 9:00am.

•They felled six trees without incident. The accident occurred at 11:30am when they were cutting down the seventh tree, a white pine approximately 50 metres high.

•They inspected the tree for any branches that might break off; they didn’t find any.

•They planned the cut so the tree would fall towards the south, down a slight slope.

•They told Brian to stand at least 70 metres away to the east, so he would be out of the path of the falling tree. He was expected to watch the team and learn how to fell trees safely.

•When the tree started to fall, the rest of the team moved quickly to the west, out of the path of the falling tree.

•One large branch of the tree apparently caught an overhanging branch from a nearby tree, and changed the direction of fall so that the tree fell towards the south-east. Brian was hit by the end of a branch on the falling tree.

•At first, the team thought that everything was OK, but as they went back to check they found Brian on the ground about 40 metres southeast of where the tree had been standing. He told Anna that he hadn’t been able to see or hear the team working, so he had moved closer, and slightly to the south, to get a better view. He hadn’t known that the tree was going to fall towards the south.

•Anna told you that, before cutting, they had checked to ensure that there were no trees in the planned path that might cause problems (the felled tree could catch on another tree, causing it to hang up or to change its direction of fall). They saw no issues.

•Apart from Brian, the team were all experienced. The team members were Ms. Karlsson, Zhang Wei, Gabriel Ramos, and Arjun Patel. None of them had been involved in any serious accidents while working for WildTree.