What would you expect to find in the report that would exonerate the pilot? Lack of training I suppose.
That incident went south pretty quickly. My observation only: Right after the start of the video, the pilot had some pitch in, as the squirrel was rotating (hopping) to the left. That would not have happened in flat pitch IMO. The pilot may have been too afraid to bring that heaving mass into the air and figured "almost into the air would do almost as good". Another possibility is that the pilot was too afraid to take his hand off of the collective long enough to reach for the throttle quadrant. Very scary for the pilot. Not a time for indecision.