Homeowner trying to remove 1,200lb tree stump is crushed to death by it

The man was trying to remove a 1,200-pound tree stump from his backyard in Northeast Portland on Tuesday night (Picture: Portland Fire & Rescue)

A homeowner trying to remove a 1,200-pound tree stump from his backyard suffered a ‘catastrophic’ accident.

The man was discovered dead in his yard in the Russell neighborhood of Northeast Portland, Oregon, on Wednesday morning.

‘This deadly accident resulted from the homeowners equipment malfunction,’ wrote Portland Fire & Rescue on X (formerly Twitter).

The rescue team responded to the home around 9.15am and set up a ‘high angle rope system’ in order to remove the stump and recover the man’s body, stated the fire department.

A rescue team set up a ‘high angle rope system’ in order to remove the stump and recover the man’s body (Picture: Portland Fire & Rescue)

A tech team used a grip hoist to safely move the large stump off of the victim.

Fire officials told KATU News that the man was using equipment to remove the stump that ‘malfunctioned, resulting in this catastrophic accident’.

The man was attempting to take out the tree stump on Tuesday night.

His wife found him pinned down by the tree on Wednesday morning, Portland Fire Bureau spokesman Rick Graves told The Oregonian.

The man’s wife found him pinned under the tree on Wednesday morning (Picture: Portland Fire & Rescue)

The man’s identity was not immediately disclosed.

In addition to emergency responders, the Portland Police Department arrived at the scene and is conducting an investigation into the incident.

The man died more than seven years after a father-of-one and tree surgeon was killed when his chainsaw ‘kicked back’ and left him dangling as he worked to cut a tree in a backyard in Bermondsey in southeast London. The man who was employed with Aralia Tree Services was a week away from celebrating his 32nd birthday.

And five years ago in March 2019, a 12-year-old schoolboy miraculously survived a freak accident when an uprooted tree sprung back up and trapped him on his grandmother’s yard in Queensland, Australia. The boy was helping to clean up his grandparents’ garden after damage from severe weather and took a picture in front of the tree before it mysteriously sprung back up and crushed him.

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