NARRATOR: In the dense forest of western Oregon--
Hopefully you get a good paycheck out of this sucker
with some big wood.
NARRATOR: --young leader, Danny Pihl and his veteran crew
are back for their second day, battling
massive old growth Douglas firs, 200
feet tall and 12 tons a piece.
Walk a little ways while you kind of assess this stuff.
NARRATOR: The Douglas firs on this 15-acre site
are worth $3,500 bucks each.
But as Danny's learning, getting them
to the ground in the dense forest is almost impossible.
DANNY PIHL: The danger of these bigger trees,
it just gets amplified.
And that's a very scary feeling.
There are things that're going to drive you down
into the soles of your boots.
NARRATOR: Making matters worse, the job site's one
of the toughest Pihl Logging has faced.
Massive old growth trees can drop huge branches
called widowmakers on the crew.
We'll lay this down here through these alders.
We'll just try not to brush that up over there.
We're going to start with this big hemlock,
and we're going to throw it right
through these spindly alders first.
Might send some stuff flying, so we'll
have to have heads up here.
NARRATOR: Chuck's using the hemlock
as a battering ram to knock down a half dozen unstable alder
trees.
They're slowly creeping right now.
Eventually, you'll see them get closer
and closer to the ground.
Eventually, they'll even break off or just come over.
NARRATOR: The alders on the job site
are weak with shallow roots and prone to falling
without warning.
Don't stand behind them, [INAUDIBLE]..
They'll knock you the [BLEEP] out.
Come out like a bullet.
And you don't want to be underneath them alders anyway
when that son of a bitch goes.
[SIGHING] Yeah.
Perfect.
NARRATOR: Chuck's plan worked.
The giant hemlock took down the most dangerous group of alders.
But there are more widowmakers lurking all over the job site.
Dwayne, watch out.
Woo.
[BLEEP] Damn.
[GRUNTING]
Dwayne.
NARRATOR: Despite the crew's best effort,
a nearby patch of 80-foot alders uprooted, wiping
out the 60-year-old veteran.
Don't move.
Don't move that saw.
You don't want to hit that trigger.
No, just stay there, Dwayne.
Don't move.
Shut that saw off.
I'm all right.
Gosh, I think I broke a rib again.
This is what he was just talking about.
That other one's about ready to too, I think.
OK, don't move.
We're going to get you up real slow.
But you got to crawl underneath this limb here.
[GRUNTING] Ah, [BLEEP].
Somebody give me a hand up.
Give him his-- put your hand right there, [INAUDIBLE]..
Sorry, Dwayne.
Watch out.
Watch out now.
Get on the other side of me.
[INAUDIBLE] pick me up.
I got you.
Here we go.
All right.
Even after a blow to the head--
I'm fine.
--Dwayne's not giving up.
Part of the job.
It's actually pretty upsetting.
It was what we talked about earlier, you know.
We're falling through these little four- five-inch alders.
They're just spindly little whips.
And there's no root system in them.
It's wet down here.
So we're just-- we're using them for cushion.
And as Dwayne was out here bucking,
sure enough, one of them uprooted, got
him right on top of the head.
[INAUDIBLE]
Yeah, a whole mess of them came down.
And it was unfortunate.
It's a mistake, I guess, on our part.
We should've been watching closer.
That's how precious life is, you know.
You could be just fine one second,
and the next second, you're dead underneath a damn wilted tree
in the mountains of [BLEEP].
Thank god for this tin hat.
I'd probably be dead or have a hell of a lump on my head.
I just got lucky is all that happened.
DANNY PIHL: The way that I like to pursue things in my position
is I would love to do everything as a team.
Safety is paramount.
I had one of them basically what we call a [BLEEP]
real close call, too close.
I don't know that I'll die in the woods.
It wouldn't bother me if I did.
I'll probably never hang up the woods.
I'll probably never quit it.
I think I'm just going to go home
and call my grandkids instead of going
out till I forget about it.
I value life a lot more than I ever did before.