Did Tree Care Give Me CTE? The Industry’s Quiet Crisis

Surviving the canopy requires constant vigilance, yet the industry remains blind to the hidden costs of cumulative trauma.

We are finally having the hard conversations about Chronic Traumatic Encephalopathy (CTE). We see the headlines about NFL linebackers, hockey enforcers, and even amusement park roller coasters and jet skis.

But there is one high-impact, high-velocity industry that is remaining dead silent: Tree Care.

For years, I was a female tree climber navigating the intense, hazard-filled canopy. I have taken the hits. I survived a 25-foot fall out of a maple tree—bouncing through the limbs like a human Plinko chip before landing on my back and the back of my head. Even with a helmet, a fall like that resets your body's baseline forever. Add to that the constant "struck-bys," the micro-concussions from rigging systems, and the jarring, daily physical toll of arboriculture.

Rigged for descent in a white pine. We engineer our ropes to prevent the big falls, but ignore the micro-traumas of the daily grind.

Facing the Reality of CTE in Tree Care

I recently failed a standard three-word memory recall test at the doctor's office. At 50 years old, it forces a hard question: How much of this is normal aging, and how much is the cumulative neurological cost of a career in the canopy?

I am currently working closely with a physiatrist who specializes in head injuries. We are tracking my cognitive health, studying the margins, and looking at how proactive therapies might alter the trajectory of cumulative brain trauma.

But the tree care industry at large isn't studying this. Arboriculture has a deeply entrenched machismo culture. Admitting to cognitive decline or the reality of micro-concussions opens up a massive liability nightmare for equipment manufacturers, scaling companies, and insurance providers. It is much easier to tell climbers to "rub some dirt on it" and pretend getting clocked by a swinging rigging line or taking a minor fall is just part of the job.

I no longer hold an active certified arborist credential, and I am not affiliated with the ISA, TCIA, or ASCA. I stepped out of the traditional production matrix to run my company as the CEO, focusing on high-level ecological consulting and citizen science. That means I have no machismo to protect and no institutional gag order to worry about.

It is time to pull the curtain back. When are we going to have a reckoning about CTE in tree care?

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Citations

• A Perennial Threat: A Case Series of Tree-Related Neurotrauma (2021): Details how tree-related accidents pose a severe risk for serious head injuries with long-term neurologic consequences, noting that they are particularly challenging for clinicians to manage.   

• Fatal Injuries Among Landscaping and Tree Care Workers (2024): Analyzes over three decades of NIOSH reports, confirming that falls from trees and struck-by incidents are top causes of fatalities, heavily exacerbated by a widespread lack of written safety plans in the industry.   

• CTE Is Caused by More Than Head Trauma (2025): Highlights recent genomic sequencing research demonstrating that repetitive head impacts trigger immune activation and neurodegenerative brain damage years after the trauma.