Chain saws, maple trees and anxiety

We have 2 maples to the northwest of the house that are60 feet tall, or thereabouts. Big, leafy giants that have been there for 30 years. They are beautiful trees and, like all maples, give cool, green shade.

Unlike all maples, these two have some sort of blight. We don't know what it is but have been watching them gradually lose branches. Over the last 2 years, they have lost about a 1/3 of their volume. We have hemmed and hawed over the last years about cutting them, or not cutting them. The decision was made about an hour ago to just go ahead and drop them both.

An old family friend came over to take a look at them and figure out how we could thin them out some to make them healthier. After looking at them closely, checking the bark and walking around checking the canopy, he stated that it would be just as well to take them down. He's in his 70s and has been doing this kind of thing all his life and knows what he's talking about. He can drop a tree in a grove exactly where he wants it and never touch another tree.

Even so, I have this irrational dread of something going horribly wrong and one of those big trees dropping right over on my house. Or worse, someone getting hurt. Every time someone starts up a chain saw, I get the heebie-jeebies. (It's just a "thing" of mine.) It especially bothers me in situations like this. We have all the equipment necessary to do this job right, but I'm in here screwing my brain around, trying not to envision the worst.

This will all be just fine and we will have an ample supply of firewood.

It's just that, well, chainsaws, you know?