A Bargersville Fire Department vehicle.
Daily Journal File Photo
After a man was severely injured by a chainsaw while doing yard work in Bargersville, a local firefighter is reminding people to be cautious when using outdoor equipment.
Bargersville Fire and EMS crews were called to a home on Smokey Row Road on Tuesday for a man severely injured by a chainsaw. The man and his wife had been clearing brush at their home using a chainsaw when it unexpectedly kicked back, causing it to strike his leg, said Mike Pruitt, Bargersville Fire Deputy Chief.
The chainsaw caused a serious enough injury that first responders had to apply a tourniquet to control bleeding. The injured man was stabilized and transported to Sidney & Lois Eskenazi Hospital in Indianapolis, where he was listed in stable condition, Pruitt said.
“Last reports are he was doing fine,” Pruitt said Tuesday.
It’s not a regular occurrence for first responders to get a call like this, but every year Bargersville Fire does gets calls involving people who were doing clean-up work with everything from a chainsaw to a ladder. With fall arriving, it’s important for people to make sure they stay safe while using equipment to clean up outside, Pruitt said.
The first thing people should do is make sure their equipment, whether it’s a chainsaw, weed-eater or something else, has safety guards in place, Pruitt said.
With chainsaws, or when chopping wood, people should wear chaps to protect themselves from flying debris. People usually wear eye protection and gloves, but they may not always wear chaps, he said.
“You never know when something may come up and bite you,” Pruitt said. “I’ve seen everything from minor to serious injuries.”
Servicing the equipment is also important. If using a chainsaw, make sure it is sharp because a dull blade that is not cutting may kick back, he said.
Additionally, people should make sure they are using the right fuel for the equipment, and make sure it is stored properly, Pruitt said.
Firefighters use chainsaws a lot, and they try to make sure they’re as safe as possible when using them. Even with the amount of safety equipment they have on, it doesn’t protect them when the chain gets on their gear, Pruitt said.
“We take it seriously and we want everybody else to take it seriously,” he said. “It’s not that this guy didn’t, it’s just that it got kicked up.”
Pruitt has even seen cases where people were injured after trying to use weed-eaters to cut something larger than what the equipment is intended for.
As leaves fall, people may also start getting out ladders to climb up to trees to cut dead branches and limbs. Pruitt has also seen instances where people have climbed up into trees to cut limbs with power equipment.
Because of the risk of injury, first responders would prefer people hire a service to do this instead. There have been cases when people put up a ladder to cut limbs on a tree that was unstable, and the tree has fallen over while people were cutting it, he said.
There have also been times when limbs have broken while people were doing work on other areas of the tree, he said.
If using electrical cords for outdoor equipment, people should make sure the cords are in good working condition. If the cords aren’t in good condition people can be shocked, Pruitt said.
