Tree clearing company calls equipment ‘dangerous’ after metal object hit Kitchener home
New questions are being raised about the equipment that sent a chunk of metal flying through the air and into a Kitchener, Ont. home, missing the homeowner’s head by mere inches.
Robert Caluian was brushing his teeth Monday morning when the object crashed through his roof and landed in his washroom.
“It was like a jump scare. I just heard a loud sound,” he told CTV News on Thursday.
Caluian lives near Chicopee Ski & Summer Resort, which is currently undergoing an expansion. Part of that work includes clearing trees from parts of the property near Fairway Road North.
Chicopee CEO Bill Creighton said he spoke to his contractor doing that work and believes a tooth from a tree grinding machine broke off and went flying across a row of houses.
He described the equipment as a disc mulcher attachment that was put on an excavator.
“It's like a circular cheese grinder that, on the tree, would just grind it up,” he said in an interview on Thursday. “In his 40 years of being an operator, he's never experienced anything like this. He's actually very distraught.”
The contractor was not available to speak to CTV News.
Creighton said they were both still in shock.
“The thing about Chicopee is we're all about safety,” he added. “We put people in the air for skiing. So to have something happen in the off season of this strange nature is totally bizarre for us.”
Another company weighs in
Rayzor Edge Tree Services, based out of Elmira, is not involved in the resort’s expansion but they’re familiar with disc mulchers. Owner Ray Bowman said it is not illegal to use those attachments, though his company chooses not to.
“It's a very it's a dangerous mulcher to use,” Bowman told CTV News on Friday.
Instead, his company uses a drum mulcher that has a deflector or door you can pull down.
An example of a drum mulcher, this one owned by Rayzor Edge Tree Services in Elmira. (Heather Senoran/CTV Kitchener)
“The only purpose of that deflector is to keep the debris from flying out the front and having something like this happening,” he said.
According to Bowman, it isn’t uncommon for debris to be thrown without a door blocking it, but thinks a metal tooth breaking off would only happen in “extreme conditions.”
“It's a four-foot wide disc spinning at 2 to 3,000 r.p.ms. If something gets going with that disk and then lets go, it will fly over quite a distance for sure,” he said.
What’s next
Chicopee has apologized to the family and said the contractor is willing to pay for repairs to their home. Caluian said he’s grateful for the apology and feels lucky to be alive.
Tree clearing has been happening at Chicopee for the last few weeks and work is expected to wrap up in the next few days.
CTVNews.ca Top Stories
Large numbers of New York City police officers begin entering Columbia University campus
Large numbers of New York City police officers began entering the Columbia University late Tuesday as dozens of pro-Palestinian protesters remained on the campus.
Poilievre kicked out of Commons after calling Prime Minister Justin Trudeau 'wacko'
Testy exchanges between the prime minister and his chief opponent ended with the Opposition leader and one of his MPs being ejected from the House of Commons on Tuesday -- and the rest of Conservative caucus walking out of the chamber in protest.
Baby, grandparents among 4 people killed in wrong-way police chase on Ontario's Hwy. 401
A police chase which started with a liquor store robbery in Bowmanville Monday night ended in tragedy some 20 minutes later when a suspect fleeing police entered Highway 401 in the wrong direction and caused a pileup which killed an infant and the child's grandparents, as well as the suspect, investigators say.
Freeland leaves capital gains tax change out of coming budget implementation bill, here's why
Deputy Prime Minister and Finance Minister Chrystia Freeland will be tabling yet another omnibus bill to pass a sweeping range of measures promised in her April 16 federal budget, though left out of the legislation will be the government's proposed capital gains tax change.
Sword-wielding man attacks passersby in London, killing a 14-year-old boy and injuring 4 others
A man wielding a sword attacked members of the public and police officers in a northeast London suburb Tuesday, killing a 14-year-old boy and injuring four other people, British authorities said.
Man dies after suffering cardiac arrest while waiting in ER, widow wants investigation
When an ambulance took David Lippert to the hospital in March of 2023, the 68-year-old Kitchener, Ont., executive was hoping to find out why he was feeling weak and unable to walk. Some 24 hours later, he was found unresponsive in the ER.
CSE says it shared information on Chinese hacking of parliamentarians in 2022
While several MPs and senators say they were only recently made aware of China-backed hackers targeting them, the Communications Security Establishment, one of Canada's intelligence agencies, says it shared information about the incident with parliamentary officials in June of 2022.
WATCH Arnold Schwarzenegger spotted filming in Elora, Ont.
The name of the project has not been officially released although it’s widely believed to be the Netflix series FUBAR.
Eviction for landlord's use was legitimate, despite owners' partial move, B.C. court rules
A B.C. judge has upheld the eviction of a family from their North Vancouver townhouse, finding that the landlords did not take an unreasonable amount of time to move into the home after the tenants vacated it.