One in six serious harvesting accidents happen during repair and maintenance activities – anything from puncture wounds and crushing to fractures and lacerations, says Rayonier Matariki Forests Director of Health and Safety, Wayne Dempster.

“Mechanisation has significantly reduced fatalities and serious harm in forestry by reducing the amount of manual falling and breaking out, but it brings its own risks, including risks related to repairs and maintenance work.” 

As a Technical Product Specialist for AB Equipment, Chris King has a few stories to tell about repair and maintenance work ‘gone wrong’. 

Like the time a mechanic was working under a truck, and the driver forgot he was there, and went to drive off. 

“They’d agreed that the driver would go have a coffee while the mechanic fixed his truck,” says Chris. “But 15 minutes later the driver came back, jumped in his truck and started it, and went to drive off. He’d completely forgotten that the mechanic was still under the back end working on one of the drive shafts.”

Luckily the driver stopped – saving the mechanic from being crushed between the diff and ground. 

This story illustrates one of the key bits of advice Chris has for people repairing and maintaining forestry machinery: “Take the keys out of the ignition and put them in your pocket”.

“Because even though these guys had a plan, they’d talked about it just 15 minutes earlier, the driver still came out, completely forgot about the plan, jumped in his truck and went to bugger off. That couldn’t have happened if the mechanic had the keys in his pocket.”

As Technical Product Specialist for the  South Island, Chris knows a lot about how to make sure repairs and maintenance go smoothly. He has shared some of his expertise in a video made by Rayonier Matariki Forests as part of a guide they’ve created titled Repair and Maintenance of Mobile Plant – Safe System of Work.

The guide is available free on the Safetree website, along with Chris’ video and another video that focuses on repairs and maintenance of log processors featuring processor specialist, Brett Charlett. 

The videos are dedicated to Josh Masters, a 23-year-old diesel mechanic who died in 2022 after being crushed while he was repairing a log loading machine in a North Canterbury forest managed by Rayonier Matariki Forests.  

Wayne says Josh’s death was a tragedy: “The videos and guide offer advice on practical steps people can take to make sure the work is done without people being harmed. Using the practices described will greatly improve the prospects of the work being completed successfully.”

Planning is the key to success, he says. “The most important message is; don’t start work until you are certain it’s safe.”

The ‘what ifs’

In his video, Chris encourages people to think about the ‘what ifs’.

“Before you start any job, ask yourself, what if it moves? What if the head falls over? What if it rains? What if I’m actually in the wrong...