Why You Should Not Remove a Tree With a Bulldozer

Three years ago, my dad was landscaping the pond across the street from our house. In the same area was a rotted out walnut tree that was just an eyesore. Since Dad already had the bulldozer he was using to dig out the pond, he thought he could kill two birds with one stone by removing the tree too, effectively becoming his own tree removal service company. Everything was going smoothly until the dozer caught on a stubborn root, which twisted the trunk of the falling tree in the direction of our house and, more immediately, the road.

Since my dad wasn’t able to move the dozer fast enough, the tree fell on top of the freshly painted machine, missing the seat my dad had just occupied by mere inches. Fortunately, the only thing injured was the bulldozer. With help from some farm hands (and their chainsaws), my dad got the tree out of the road within the hour. Needless to say, my dad could have avoided this situation if he had called the experts at CHOP to deal with the tree in the first place.