Tree work incident report 23CA001: palm fronds crush a trimmer, California

This page reports what the official source says. It is not legal advice: ask the office named here. This page restates one official fatality report in our own words: case 23CA001 from the California Department of Public Health's Fatality Assessment and Control Evaluation program, dated February 9, 2024. It covers a palm tree trimmer who died of traumatic asphyxia on February 13, 2023. No one is named here or in the report. The program says its reports are based on preliminary data and do not determine fault. The table of every report we read is in the official case library for tree work incidents.

The job and the employer

The employer was a landscaper who had been in business for eight months. The report says he held neither a landscaping (C-27) nor a tree service (D-49) contractor's licence and was not an ISA-certified tree worker. He hired workers by the job, and on that day he had three, including the man who died. There was no written safety program and no record of formal training on tree trimming. The report does not know whether palm safety was discussed on site that day.

The man who died had trimmed trees for about 12 years and owned the equipment for the job. An instructor who had taught tree safety classes with him told the investigator he was very knowledgeable about palm trimming and was regarded by others in the trade as a qualified tree worker, though he held no certification. The scene was the front yard of a house on a cul-de-sac with three palms about 80 feet tall, where the dead fronds began about 50 feet up.

What happened

The landscaper and two workers were driving through a neighbourhood looking for work. They saw three palms with many dead fronds, rang the bell and were hired on the spot. One worker phoned the man with the most palm experience, described the job and gave him the address. He arrived a little after 10:00 a.m., put on a climbing harness and spikes and secured himself to the tree with ropes. The other three stayed on the ground to gather fronds for the truck. According to the co-workers, he had not brought all the gear needed to climb above the dead fronds. He climbed to a position beneath them and began cutting with a chainsaw and pulling fronds off.

Most of what he cut fell to the ground, but some fronds tangled into a skirt around the trunk above him. About 15 minutes into the work, the co-workers saw the skirt collapse onto him. They could no longer hear the saw and he did not answer. One tried to climb up and could not. They called 911, and dispatchers received the call at 11:24 a.m. The fire department arrived five minutes later, and getting him down took about 30 minutes using the aerial ladder of a fire truck. CPR was tried and he was pronounced dead at the scene. The county coroner gave traumatic asphyxia as the cause. The report gives the time of the incident as 11:00 a.m. in its summary and 12:09 p.m. in its introduction.

Contributing factors the report lists

Three: fronds removed from below, equipment that was not right for the job, and a homeowner hiring trimmers and supervisors who were not certified or licensed. The report says the man knew the proper way to take fronds off from above when more than three years of growth has built up, and suggests he may have gone ahead without fetching the missing equipment.

What the report recommends

The report recommends that palm trimming or removal be done or supervised by workers trained and certified by bodies such as the International Society of Arboriculture, and that proper procedures and equipment be used, such as an aerial lift fitted with fall protection, or a climbing method that places the worker above the fronds when growth is over three years. It describes that method in outline as a climbing system set in the crown above the skirt from the ground, with one or two trained ground workers. It also recommends written safety rules for every task and that qualified tree workers direct the work. For homeowners it recommends hiring only certified trimmers and supervisors with a tree service contractor's licence where one applies, and notes that homeowners may be liable for injuries or deaths on their property when an unlicensed tree service is hired. The same state's earlier palm fronds case is report 16CA007. The rules the report cites are in the guide to OSHA tree care status.

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