Tierson Boutte, owner of TCIA-member company Boutte Tree, Inc., in Atlanta, Georgia, granted TCIA permission to re-print and re-purpose his story, a December 2, 2012, TreeBuzz.com post he wrote about a bad crane accident his company experienced, “in hopes that others may learn from our accident and avoid something life-threatening.”

In late November 2012, a Boutte Tree, Inc. crane operator (in-training) committed an error in judgment regarding the weight of a piece of wood and caused their 38-ton crane to fall onto a house, damaging the house badly.

“There is, sadly, little new to be learned from the physical aspects of this accident, but from the point of view of managing a tree company and making training and safety decisions, there are a lot of valuable lessons, which may be enlightening to some,” says Tierson Boutte. “Though it’s painful for me to explain all of this since the biggest mistakes leading to this accident were mine I am forging ahead in the hopes that somewhere, someday, a company like mine will avoid a similar accident.”

To read the compelling story, which was published in the January 2013 issue of TCI Magazine, click here.