Emergency personnel responded to two calls in western Wilkes County on Tuesday, one in which a man was injured while cutting up a tree for firewood and the other a commercial tour bus that used a sand pile escape ramp on U.S. 421 West when its brakes overheated.
A 70-year-old man was injured while using a chainsaw on a felled tree when he tripped, tumbled down a slope and was struck in the chest and head by a large section of the tree he had cut that rolled down the slope, said Chief Cole Wyatt of the Wilkes Rescue Squad. The man had blunt trauma injuries but was conscious and alert at the scene, said Wyatt.
The accident occurred about 300-400 yards off Larkin’s Little Mountain Road, which is off N.C. 268 West in the Ferguson community. The victim’s wife reported it to the Wilkes Communications Center at 10:45 a.m. The couple live on Larkin’s Little Mountain Road.