Tree trimmer, 43, DIES after getting stuck in 50ft palm tree
An Arizona tree trimmer was killed after becoming trapped under a dense canopy of palm fronds while trimming an unkempt, 50-foot palm tree.
Jamie Yepiz, 43, was pruning the unmaintained palm tree on Saturday in West Phoenix when the tree's thick, dead leaves suddenly collapsed around him, pinning him in place.
The Phoenix Fire Department responded to the 'chaotic scene' only to find Yepiz - an experienced tree trimmer with 12 years in the profession - around the trunk of the tree, stuck among a bunch of palm tree fronds.
Officials believe he was knocked unconscious by parts of the tree.
'He was an expert at what he did,' Patricia Perez, Yepiz's ex-wife and mother of his children, told WTSP. 'I just don't know what happened.'
Rescuers reportedly had to use a chainsaw to free the 43-year-old father-of-six after he spent about an hour trapped under the palm tree's skirt, Fox10 Phoenix reported.
Despite being freed, Yepiz was unresponsive and quickly rushed to Banner - University Medical Center, just 10 miles from the scene, where he later died from injuries related to suffocation.
The Centers for Disease Control says suffocation can happen if tree trimmers cut or pull on dead palm fronds, which are heavy, that collapse and encase them, crushing their chest.
The Phoenix Fire Department responded to the 'chaotic scene' only to find Yepiz - an experienced tree trimmer with 12 years in the profession - around the trunk of the tree, stuck among a bunch of palm tree fronds
Yepiz had been working on the tree for about three hours, before he became stuck, Fox10 reported, adding that the soaring palm tree 'had been untouched for nearly 50-years' prior to the veteran trimmer's services.
Richard Chard, a neighbor of the home that Yepiz was working for, said he witnessed the chaotic scene.
'All hell broke loose,' Chard told Fox5.
Chard said he knew there was something seriously wrong when firefighters pulled the tree trimmer out.
'When they got him on the gurney it didn't look good,' Chard said. 'He wasn't moving at all.'
Tree trimming expert, Scott Cebulski, weighed in on the heartbreaking accident claiming that trimming palms can be extremely dangerous.
'Palm trees are probably the most dangerous tree that you can trim,' Cebulski, owner of Trees-R-Us and Arizona Trim A Tree, told Fox10. 'You could be talking 250 pounds per foot.'
Cebulski emphasized the 'high risk' involved in the profession, adding that after 48 years working in the industry he has 'had 20 friends ... 18 friends, killed.'
The tragic incident unfolded just days before the seasoned trimmer was to start a new job in home remodeling Perez told WTSP, adding that the job may have been 'too much' for him to handle.
'That's the sad part, because it was so much, but he told the gentleman that hired him, "Oh no, I got this. I can do this,"' Perez said. 'I think he was ready to do something better, something easier because it was hard work.'
To make matters worse, Yepiz's accident happened on Mexican Mother's Day - May 10. A native of Sonora, Mexico, Yepiz's family said the 'hardest call they had to make' was to his mother.
Yepiz leaves behind two daughters and four step children 'he raised as his own.'
'Jaime was a hard worker, kind, and loved by all,' a GoFundMe fundraiser organized by his step-daughter, Kayla Perez, reads.
The fundraiser was organized to help raise funds to send the 'hard worker' back to his hometown 'so he can be laid to rest and his parents can say their final goodbyes.' The campaign raised over $10,000 towards its $18,000 goal as of Tuesday morning.
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