Fatal forest accident in Bad Bleiberg: Baum demands a man's life

Fatal forest accident in Bad Bleiberg: Baum demands a man's life

On June 26, 2025, a tragic forest accident occurred in Bad Bleiberg, Villach Land district, in which a 42-year-old Romanian forest worker was killed. The three Romanian citizens were busy with a winch in the Kadutschen Graben. According to Gailtal Journal, the cable win was positioned on one side of a trench, while two men worked on the opposite side about 40 meters away on a forest path.

The incident occurred around 11 a.m. One worker served the winch, while the 42-year-old and another colleague removed branches from the trees. During the work, the tree on which the winch was attached. The tree broke into two parts four meters above the rootstock, with the upper section hit the forest worker in the upper body area, such as [5min.at] (https://www.5min.at/52025061839/toedlicht-forfall-beiberg-bleiberg-baum-baum.

emergency reaction and the cause of death

immediately after the accident, a colleague put an emergency call. The team of the RK1 rescue helicopter quickly reached the scene of the accident, but was only able to determine the death of the man. He still succumbed to his serious injuries at the scene of the accident. The cause of death was identified as polytrauma, which illustrates the severity of his injuries. The mountain rescue took over the rescue of the deceased, who was handed over to the burial Villach.

Such tragic accidents are unfortunately not uncommon in forestry. In a current statistics of social security for agriculture, forestry and horticulture (SVLFG), the increase in the number of accidents during forest work is pointed out. In 2022, the number of accidents in forest work increased slightly, after five years with falling numbers. A significant increase of 26 percent occurred in particular when it comes to woodworking.

frequent causes of forest accidents

The data of the SVLFG show that a total of 4,302 accidents of work were recorded in forestry last year, which corresponds to an increase of 6.3 percent compared to 2021. 33 people lost their lives in forest work in 2022, whereby 24 fatal accidents were due to tree parts. 213 accidents were registered in particular when working with forest ropes, which means an increase of 26 percent compared to the previous year. These figures illustrate the high risk in the forest sector and the need for safety measures at the wooden harvest, as well as on SVLFG.

The SVLFG offers comprehensive information and further training measures for safe forest work in order to counteract such accidents. This underlines the importance of a safe work environment for forest workers in order to avoid tragic incidents such as the one in Bad Bleiberg.