The youth, an apprentice employed by a forest company, was killed by a tree after it was cut on a steep slope in the Val d’Assa region shortly before noon, cantonal police said.
A Rega emergency doctor was helicoptered to the scene but could only confirm the male victim’s death, police said.
The local prosecutor’s office and cantonal police have launched an investigation into the exact causes of the accident.
Later in the day, a log rolled over an 81-year-old man who was working in a pasture in the Tschlin area.
The man had just finished cutting branches off the tree trunk with a chainsaw on a slope when the log rolled over him.
Rega officials responded to the accident scene.
The senior was flown to the Graubünden cantonal hospital in Chur for treatment of undetermined injuries.
According to SUVA, the Swiss health insurance organization, forestry work is among the most dangerous professions in Switzerland.
An average of four workers die working in Swiss forests annually, based on statistics from 2002 to 2011, with three times that number suffering disabilities, SUVA says.
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