Safe Retreat

Breaking-out is tough & demanding work. Dealing with the hazards and challenges in a typical day in the harvesting and cable logging environment can be exhausting – slope, undergrowth, sliding logs, rolling debri, and moving ropes. It’s easy for a breaker-out to become tired and lose focus on retreating to the correct position while the ropes are moving. This mistake is a contributing factor to many forestry breaking-out injuries.

Traditional forestry systems rely on physical markers to designate the safe retreat line. Markers must be continually moved which is slow and irritating for the logging breaker-outs. The markers only provide a visual guide, and no safety warning system or means of measuring entries into the no go zone. The logging hauler operator also usually can’t see the breaker-outs, so relies on radio communication and toot signals before going ahead with the drag – until now there has been no means to confirm the actual breaker-out location and monitor proximity to moving ropes.