Another Hammock Death in MN

[bobamos]

What a shame. Unfortunately, when new things become popular there are so things, such as a hammock, that the general public do not understand. My daughter purchased one and let the grandkids play in it. Fortunately, I was able to instill a little much needed knowledge. Hope that they understood. My wife and I have purchased 3 more hammocks for them and plan on accompanying them on a few trips and will do the "show and tell" thing with them. That should help them understand.

[strikealight]

Couple of thoughts in light of this latest tragedy.

First - hammock camping and hammocking in general seems to have exploded in popularity, particularly on your side of the pond. This means that there are increasingly huge numbers of folks hanging from increasingly huge numbers of trees, significantly increasing the probabilities of terrible freak accidents like these.

And I say "freak accidents" because as some posts in this very thread illustrate, sometimes it can be difficult to detect a suspect tree. Genuine example: I am inherently health and safety minded given I am involved in dealing with accident aftermaths in my working life, and I have two young sons. Last year I hung off a pair of trees after checking them carefully, looking at the bark up and down, pulling and pushing them this way and that, checking the twigs on them were alive, etc.. Woke in the middle of the night with my bum on the floor. One of the trees had started to break at ground level and the whole tree had been gradually leaning over. Leaning directly over ME. I immediately re-strung my whole set-up between two other trees in the dark. In the morning, I could see that much of the tree's thickness was rotten at and just below ground level - not something I would have specifically checked for. There was enough live wood to supply the tree to keep it looking healthy. It wasn't a massive tree - 8-10" or so (I compromised because the pitch afforded a great view of the city) and it seems the combination of the wind and the weight of my hang tipped the weakness over the edge. It was also a pretty wide hang, which of course would have increased the lateral forces. I thought I knew what I was doing and was immune to accidents like this. My eldest son and I revisited the site just a few weeks ago while we were out for a hang, and the entire tree was on the ground. A not massive but not insubstantial tree, which I or (shudder) one of my sons could have ended up under. It seems a significant proportion of these recent tragic hammocking tragedies involve trees which are rotten from the inside, but look okay on the outside. Quite a trap for all but the most educated and experienced hammocker. At least one of these accidents involved trees in back yards that the owners have lived alongside for years.

In light of all of this, might I suggest a "Rogue Tree Gallery" sticky or something like that where good folks can post their horror stories, near-misses and photos to build up an educational resource, not just for us "serious" hammockers but for others using hammocks more casually - the sort of folks who I guess might be in the most danger. This resource could highlight those quirky little traps that aren't immediately obvious, or may be confined to certain localities or species of tree. For example, where I am I have rejected enough seemingly healthy and strong silver birches upon close inspection to make me inclined to avoid them entirely as a species. Trees near the banks of spate rivers have withstood hundreds of floods and so in my experience they seem to be inherently strong. Similarly, trees at the edges of woods on mountainsides have to withstand batterings from the wind, and this seems to weed out the weaklings - I am a lot more careful in the middle of sheltered ancient oak woods, especially when it comes to widowmakers. The trunk of my rogue tree was one of three which appeared to be growing out of the same root stock, which I now suspect are more prone to this sort of ground-level rot.

There must be more than a thousand years of experience on this forum. I think it would be a really good thing to have such a sticky to steer a new Scout hammocker to or some such, just to make them aware of the range of dangers and traps and to quickly "get their eye in" so to speak. I think this kind of knowledge and experience is not of the order that you want to learn from your own mistakes.

[jellyfish]

I had a close call last summer when a big branch fell right between the two trees that my Dog and I were sleeping from. I had packed everything up about an hour before and was just hanging out eating breakfast.

No wind. Tree looked healthy. Branch that fell was full of leaves and looked like a normal branch.

Sometimes it is impossible to predict that a tree or a branch will fall.

[The Tree Frog]

Couple of thoughts in light of this latest tragedy.

First - hammock camping and hammocking in general seems to have exploded in popularity, particularly on your side of the pond. This means that there are increasingly huge numbers of folks hanging from increasingly huge numbers of trees, significantly increasing the probabilities of terrible freak accidents like these.

And I say "freak accidents" because as some posts in this very thread illustrate, sometimes it can be difficult to detect a suspect tree. Genuine example: I am inherently health and safety minded given I am involved in dealing with accident aftermaths in my working life, and I have two young sons. Last year I hung off a pair of trees after checking them carefully, looking at the bark up and down, pulling and pushing them this way and that, checking the twigs on them were alive, etc.. Woke in the middle of the night with my bum on the floor. One of the trees had started to break at ground level and the whole tree had been gradually leaning over. Leaning directly over ME. I immediately re-strung my whole set-up between two other trees in the dark. In the morning, I could see that much of the tree's thickness was rotten at and just below ground level - not something I would have specifically checked for. There was enough live wood to supply the tree to keep it looking healthy. It wasn't a massive tree - 8-10" or so (I compromised because the pitch afforded a great view of the city) and it seems the combination of the wind and the weight of my hang tipped the weakness over the edge. It was also a pretty wide any, which of course would have increased the lateral forces. I thought I knew what I was doing and was immune to accidents like this. My eldest son and I revisited the site just a few weeks ago while we were out for a hang, and the entire tree was on the ground. A not massive but not insubstantial tree, which I or (shudder) one of my sons could have ended up under. It seems a significant proportion of these recent tragic hammocking tragedies involve trees which are rotten from the inside, but look okay on the outside. Quite a trap for all but the most educated and experienced hammocker. At least one of these accidents involved trees in back yards that the owners have lived alongside for years.

In light of all of this, might I suggest a "Rogue Tree Gallery" sticky or something like that where good folks can post their horror stories, near-misses and photos to build up an educational resource, not just for us "serious" hammockers but for others using hammocks more casually - the sort of folks who I guess might be in the most danger. This resource could highlight those quirky little traps that aren't immediately obvious, or may be confined to certain localities or species of tree. For example, where I am I have rejected enough seemingly healthy and strong silver birches upon close inspection to make me inclined to avoid them entirely as a species. Trees near the banks of spate rivers have withstood hundreds of floods and so in my experience they seem to be inherently strong. Similarly, trees at the edges of woods on mountainsides have to withstand batterings from the wind, and this seems to weed out the weaklings - I am a lot more careful in the middle of sheltered ancient oak woods, especially when it comes to widowmakers. The trunk of my rogue tree was one of three which appeared to be growing out of the same root stock, which I now suspect are more prone to this sort of ground-level rot.

There must be more than a thousand years of experience on this forum. I think it would be a really good thing to have such a sticky to steer a new Scout hammocker to or some such, just to make them aware of the range of dangers and traps and to quickly "get their eye in" so to speak. I think this kind of knowledge and experience is not of the order that you want to learn from your own mistakes.

I like this idea. Not so much to tell our stories and get reactions, but more of the facts of the situation. Examples, pictures of inspection of seemingly healthy trees and after pictures of what happened if possible. Maybe if we take pictures of our trees before we hang, just in case it happens. Then the after pictures. If a tree falls that night or later in the year, we have now captured the before and after.

Doing this will give us a library of types of trees, landscape such as rock, side of mountain, brook or river edge, Edge of forest etc. We can build the library and then share with the public. Legal disclaimers included.

Maybe a searchable website or app? Come on IT, programmers, etc.

[allhansondeck]

Shug
So tragic! I was born and raised in MN, lived in Big Lake when I was 11 and 12 years old. Last spring when I was hiking with Crawdaddy and DimJim in NC the wind kicked up and a huge branch from a tree about 10 feet away fell within 3 feet of Crawdaddy in his hammock. Thankfully, no damage or injuries.
Thanks for raising the awareness again of safe tree selection.
allhansondeck

[HanMale]

I think, the manner of choosing a safe site for hanging should always include a wise choice of gear!
Thrustworthy trees paired with bad underground(spiky stones/roots) below the hammock, and a broken buckle/suspension can end a hang on many ways...even deadly...
In a lot of trip reports i`ve seen, it seems that people put more thrust in their equipment than in the trees!
Many of them use very thin amsteel for suspension attached to even thinner fabrics, hold together by small (often)casted buckles hanging in hights without getting dizzy...
What about, a buckle on the head end suspension breaks, and your neck hits the stone/root from 3ft hight, while asleep?
In this case(for example) the diameter and sort of the tree doesn`t matter at all!
I bet, hammock accidents depending on gearfails will become more "common" than bad trees or widowmakers...
The "gear to weight ratio" will be "the neckbreaker" of the near future!
...hope i`m wrong, but as the hammocking evolves and explodes...