Over 35 participants in the Michigan Electric Cooperative Association (MECA) Safety partnership, including municipal utilities, attended a Chainsaw Safety Workshop on Sept. 3-4.
Besides the hands-on cutting and felling of trees, participants learned chainsaw safety and maintenance, emergency first aid, and proper field dressings for injuries.
The equipment workshop participants are required to wear is also good advice for anyone using a chainsaw – safety glasses, a hard hat and hearing protection, chainsaw chaps, a long sleeve shirt, and work gloves. Anyone who is allergic must also carry a bee sting kit.
The event was held at Presque Isle Electric & Gas Co-op (PIE&G), and McElroy said because of recent wet weather they had to “hayride” workshop attendees into the areas where they were felling trees. “Trucks did not stand a chance,” he said. “We also had to bring attendees out of the field an hour early due to an approaching storm, which turned out to cause over 500,000 outages statewide on Labor Day weekend.”
The MECA safety team appreciates the help from PIE&G employees in hosting the workshop, McElroy said, and also thanks Cherryland for hosting a recent Underground Safety workshop.
