Abstract: On January 8, 1990, Employee #1, an experienced tree trimmer, was trimming the end of a large tree branch that overhung a porch. He was wearing the standard climbing harness, which was tied off at the crown of the tree, and carrying a letdown rope to attach to the part of the branch he was to cut off. He attached the letdown rope to the branch, snubbed it up in a secondary fork of the branch he was standing on, and cut the branch. Until this point, the branch had held his relatively static weight; however, when the part of the branch he had just cut dynamically loaded the branch where the letdown rope was snubbed, the branch broke off behind him. Being out on the breaking limb with his safety line tied at the crown of the tree, Employee #1 swung back into the tree trunk like a pendulum. He suffered serious injuries and died on January 11, 1990. Unknown to anyone there was an interior rotten spot in the section that broke. It was surrounded by live wood.