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Accidents On Farms


marsh man
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As we all know their are more accidents on farms and building sites than any other industry , in our local paper this morning and on the local Anglia news tonight they had a report on one very lucky farmer , or unlucky depending on how you look at it .

The guy was loading round bails of straw onto his trailer when he stopped the load all and walked around the trailer to check the ropes , when he got inline with the load all it slowly rolled forward and one of the prongs went through his back and came out of his belly on the other side .

His wife called the emergency services and they cut off the prong in half with an angle grinder and took him to hospital with it still sticking out of both sides of his body , a team of up to 30 surgeons worked all night to try and save him which they did and him and his wife met the Air Ambulance to thank them and donated a good bit of money they had collected .

One very , very lucky young man and hats off to all the good guys who took part to save this mans life .

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Almost exactly the same thing happened up here a few months ago. 
Except it was a forklift unloading a wagon, and the operator wasn’t so lucky.

I was also first responder for a lad who was crushed whilst trying to do a “quick” check on a forklift chains, leaving a load unsecured. Resulting in a crushed pelvis and broken femur.

Most of these accidents happen when operators become complacent, having done the same job numerous times before. Very unfortunate for the people involved. 
 

Keep your wits about you whilst working with heavy equipment folks.

 

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I wouldn’t know where to start with this. 
The father of a lad I was at school with was disembowelled when his clothing was caught in the PTO. This was early ‘70’s. He made it to hospital and lived for a few days but didn’t survive.

A good mate at school fell off the back of the tractor his Dad was driving. His Dad didn’t realise and reversed over his head. Fortunately the ground was so soft his head was pushed into the ground and he survived. 
He was about 15 at the time and spent months in intensive care where it was touch and go for a long time. 
He made a full recovery and went in to uni’ where he studied music, and eventually became a lecturer in dry stone walling at Newton Rigg College. I bump into him quite often and we always have the craic. The only affliction he carries is a slight twist to his face when he smiles. Nice bloke. 

Another school mate had a few ribs broken when he got between his bull and the bier wall. 
The BIL of a farmers wife in town was working with plant and jumped off his digger to push some overhead cables out of the way, with a pole. The current blew off both his arms, one leg below the knee and his one remaing foot. He was still talking to his mates when the ambulance arrived. 
Amazingly he survived, but his recovery has been long and intensely painful, with both his legs having had to be removed due to tissue damage, and the entire house has been redesigned with his disabilities in mind.
He was a very active man and fell walker prior to his accident. 
There have been grain silo tragedies also. Horrific, simply horrific. 

Edited by Scully
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The primary school aged son of a bloke who lives a stones throw away was killed sitting behind his Dad when the quad they were on overturned, and just last month an 80 odd year old local farmer was tragically killed by his own gator, when his dog jumped into it and somehow set it off! 
 

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THANKS to Big Mat for putting on the link about the poor man who had the prong go through his body :good:

Looking at all the above accidents it seem many end up either killed or very badly injured .

I worked on a agricultural and sporting estate for nearly 30 years until I retired and luckily we didn't have any serious injuries , the nearest we got was the woodman who I started with for six weeks was accident prone , mind you that was getting on for 45 years ago when health and safety was hardly heard of , we had some contractors come on the estate to cut some large trees down and our job was to haul out the trunks from where they were felled in the woods , after cutting off all the branches we had a old ford tractor with two spades at the back that dug into the ground when the winch was in operation , after watching and helping for a few days he asked me if I wanted a go on the tractor , well it looked easy enough so I said yes , I jump on and started to haul this big ole trunk out , everything was going well when it got caught against a standing tree , I wasn't sure what was going on and the spades were sinking into the ground and then the front wheels started to lift off the ground , I then panicked a bit and slammed the lever forward and luckily the tractor dropped back to ground level and no harm was done .

The woodman also had a saw bench that ran from the P T O arm , this was lethal as it had no guards or safety devices , if we heard a ambulance going past we used to say poor ole Eric have lost another part of his hand and nine times out of ten we were right , nearly always it was the end of his finger and in the end he had to stop using it while he still had some limbs left 

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3 hours ago, marsh man said:

THANKS to Big Mat for putting on the link about the poor man who had the prong go through his body :good:

Looking at all the above accidents it seem many end up either killed or very badly injured .

I worked on a agricultural and sporting estate for nearly 30 years until I retired and luckily we didn't have any serious injuries , the nearest we got was the woodman who I started with for six weeks was accident prone , mind you that was getting on for 45 years ago when health and safety was hardly heard of , we had some contractors come on the estate to cut some large trees down and our job was to haul out the trunks from where they were felled in the woods , after cutting off all the branches we had a old ford tractor with two spades at the back that dug into the ground when the winch was in operation , after watching and helping for a few days he asked me if I wanted a go on the tractor , well it looked easy enough so I said yes , I jump on and started to haul this big ole trunk out , everything was going well when it got caught against a standing tree , I wasn't sure what was going on and the spades were sinking into the ground and then the front wheels started to lift off the ground , I then panicked a bit and slammed the lever forward and luckily the tractor dropped back to ground level and no harm was done .

The woodman also had a saw bench that ran from the P T O arm , this was lethal as it had no guards or safety devices , if we heard a ambulance going past we used to say poor ole Eric have lost another part of his hand and nine times out of ten we were right , nearly always it was the end of his finger and in the end he had to stop using it while he still had some limbs left 

I remember as a teen and my first day on the job with an Agric contractor, being asked to cut a few logs with a large circular saw [without guards and powered by a "Major" tractor] After a few logs I hit a knot, gave it a shove and fell towards the 3ft blade, the blade cut a slice into the front of my duffle coat, before i was able to lean back, certainly another inch and it would have split me in two. I have also turned two tractors over [into ditches], one with the loader up, which saved me and one larger Massey with a 3 furrow plough, the whole shebang came to a rest on its side and invisible from the field, another that springs to mind is deftly hitching onto a 4 wheel trailer as it was gaining speed on a hill with my old farmer boss sat on top of the 6 courses bales.. he was a happy man..😀

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Guy in our area was up in his shed checking on round bales he had stored upright and somehow he slipped in between them into the curved diamond shape you get between 4 bales. His wife heard a bit of shouting, but thought he was moving animals. It seems he panicked after a while and suffocated. Wasnt found for 24 hours. Have had nightmares about that one.

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Dads worked and lived on farms his entire life.  In the 80s he was crushed by a cow once before milking, broke four ribs and his left wrist. Just tiredness resulted in a lapse of concentration and the resulting mistake which to be fair could have been a lot worse.

Also way before I was born, so probably late 60s he had a narrow escape when the front wheel on his massey 135 came off when he was carting straw on the main road pulling the tractor into the ditch and turning it over. He managed to fall clear but will never understand how.

He also doesn't wear a wedding ring any more after having the finger ripped off at the knuckle by a piece of machinery he was working on.

So many ag accidents happen because people are tired or have lost concentration, or are just too pressed for time to be careful.

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Farmers wife where I do a bit of milking was putting a kick bar on a heifer in the parlour and next thing she knew she was waking up on the floor of the pit. She doesn't know what happened but she ended up in hospital with a nasty concussion and a bog gash in the back of her head. She either slipped or got kicked and fell backwards off the standing ledge 3ft in the air. She was lucky not to catch the ledge on the opposite side. Could have easily been fatal.

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3 hours ago, adzyvilla said:

Dads worked and lived on farms his entire life.  In the 80s he was crushed by a cow once before milking, broke four ribs and his left wrist. Just tiredness resulted in a lapse of concentration and the resulting mistake which to be fair could have been a lot worse.

Also way before I was born, so probably late 60s he had a narrow escape when the front wheel on his massey 135 came off when he was carting straw on the main road pulling the tractor into the ditch and turning it over. He managed to fall clear but will never understand how.

He also doesn't wear a wedding ring any more after having the finger ripped off at the knuckle by a piece of machinery he was working on.

So many ag accidents happen because people are tired or have lost concentration, or are just too pressed for time to be careful.

Hope your dad didn't have any long term ill effects from his working life on the land , just about every farm worker would know someone who was injured or worse still died from a related farm accident .

On one large farm where I used to do a lot of pigeon shooting had a serious accident , the way it happened must had been done to many farms throughout the land .

They had to change some bulbs in one of the stores , maybe the potato store , they used the tele port with a potato box on the forks , the forks were to close together and when the farm worker went to the outside of the box to change the bulb it tipped over with the poor chap inside , this resulted in a death and the farmer either got a heavy fine , out of court settlement , or both .

This tragedy soon got about and we had all the safety devices fitted to the bucket that went on the tele porter , but how many times is this method still used throughout the country , like you say , it is often tiredness and lack of concentration after doing the exactly same thing without any mishap in the past .

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In a well known farming incident my way several years back. A fella was bailing straw in a remote field when he got a blockage on the bailer. He tried to clear the blockage without shutting down and got pulled into the bailer and was trapped by his smashed arm. Realising no help would come and things weren't going to go well if he didn't act soon, he decided and managed to cut his own lower arm off with what he described to the press at the time as "a ladies penknife". He managed to get himself free, stop the bleeding and walk some distance to get help. He one of the few folk i see about that still wears a hook. Some tough ol boi's in Suffolk.     NB 

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grew up in a farming environment  inc peat bog turf machines     friends hurt mamed        i can tell uoy but i cant explain the loss of limbs working alone on machines  combines    balers       binders        slurry pits        animals dead to agitation          to nane a few                                a neighbour home from england helped his brother on a 30t rowler    reversed over his todler    as his mrs didnt understand  farming  he couldnt see todler  despite sxplaining what he was about to do  she didnt see the  dangour                    a funeral like no other  heartbreahing            when i took my kids home to galway  at moms their granmas their dos  and donts    with or without me      my wife town girl   didnt understand             they must  listen to me        using tractors    harvesting machine  and ploughing  inc snaring  hunting         cook a meal for mom and grandma  rabbit stew   after three days  slow cooked   plates polished         berries for pies  crumbles    whats not to like about the countryside  its al there  not tesco ****                                                                             buy from a market       home grown  produce veg and tates   meat    

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9 hours ago, NatureBoy said:

In a well known farming incident my way several years back. A fella was bailing straw in a remote field when he got a blockage on the bailer. He tried to clear the blockage without shutting down and got pulled into the bailer and was trapped by his smashed arm. Realising no help would come and things weren't going to go well if he didn't act soon, he decided and managed to cut his own lower arm off with what he described to the press at the time as "a ladies penknife". He managed to get himself free, stop the bleeding and walk some distance to get help. He one of the few folk i see about that still wears a hook. Some tough ol boi's in Suffolk.     NB 

I can remember that one , like you say , some tough old boys .

There was another one where two or three went down into a slurry tank and were overcome by the fumes and resulted in more farming deaths.

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14 hours ago, marsh man said:

, the forks were to close together and when the farm worker went to the outside of the box to change the bulb it tipped over with the poor chap inside , this resulted in a death and the farmer either got a heavy fine , out of court settlement , or both .

A good friend was killed exactly the same way this year, hasn't got to court yet as far as I know.

Mate in the box knew very well it wasn't safe and so did the farmer driving the loader, for the sake of £100 on a scaffold tower my mates dead. A tenner on a ratchet strap would have saved his life by keeping the box on the forks, farmer probably had one and mate probably had one in his truck but lets save 5 minutes by not bothering. Stupid and tragic!

Just to make it even worse his son was with him and watched it happen.

Not the first time and won't be the last because for some reason some farmers are just idiots.

18 hours ago, adzyvilla said:

So many ag accidents happen because people are tired or have lost concentration, or are just too pressed for time to be careful.

Occasionally there are unforeseen accidents but very nearly always they are easily avoidable. I have farmed all of my 57 years, so did my dad and so did his and so have most of my relations. There have been one or two lucky escapes but no serious injuries. The lucky escapes could easily have turned out much worse but the overriding factor is it was obviously dangerous and almost inevitable that someone was about to get hurt. How can you possibly be too pressed for time to be careful? The first rule is always that everybody goes home unharmed.

I have worked on other farms and can't believe how many times I have seen people put their lives in obvious serious danger for absolutely no reason at all.

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3 hours ago, oldypigeonpopper said:

Hello, when I was a young lad my friends family had a farm in the village, dad smoked roll ups and always had one going but forgot to take out of his mouth when checking the tractor fuel, !!! Months of recovery , Accidents happen but many many could have been avoided, 

Nasty that OPP.

A lapse is all it it takes.

Sometimes it is downright recklessness. (see below)

A few years back there was a trend around Guy Fawkes night in which firework powder would be emptied onto a small hole pushed into the side of empty fizzy drinks can. The individual would then light the powder whilst 'blowing gently' through the drink hole at the end. Regrettably for the individual on the receiving end of this resulted in full and partial thickness burns to hand, face and mouth.

After i explained to the individual that they would be 999 to national burns unit and possibly intubated within the coming few hours from the risk associated with a trachea/oral mucosal thermal inhalation burn did they begin to see 'the error of their ways.'

Speaking with the plastic surgeon on call at the national burns centre, he inferred to an extent that  'injuries from acts such as this were increasingly common' and he duly accepted the referral from me. With the individual next to me, it did put thing into perspective. Still the acute risk of death and long term problems with months of recovery.

 

Myself and my colleagues deal with injuries on a daily basis resulting from recreation activities, work based/industrial/agriculure, DIY (STANDS FOR: DON'T INVOLVE YERSELF! OR ALTERNATIVELY, DESTROY IT YERSELF! :lol:)

The injuries people present with can be anything from minor superificial trauma impact injuries to severe. RTA, lacerations, foriegn bodies, glass, metal, wood etc, fractures, thermal and chemical chemical burns, all manor of superficial and traumatic animal/human bites, self harm and assault, the list goes on.  Some of the it can be quite severe truama from all of the above, degloved, detached/full lacerated digits, bone, tendon and deep musculature involvemnet, ischaemic critical digits, full thickness burns and the occassional spurting artery.

Thankfully in many circumstances these injuries are minor and can be dealt with with minimal intervention and have a satisfactory outcome for the individual, family and/or carer's. This means for the most, that they have no real measurable long term impact on functional, cognitive abilty, thus, not reducing overall quality of life. For some a traumatic injury arising from an event such a animal bite, RTA or assault can result in both short and long term emotional and psychological concerns.

At other times the injury will need further surgical intervention for significant trauma and immeadite referral to specialism. Plastics, Max fax ENT, ENP, Vascular to name a few. Sadly for some, the injury will result in a significant long term impact. 

In my experience injuries result from an unfortunate set of events outside of the individuals control, lapses of concerntration, poor judgement and at times recklessness and disregard of others.

I think if all told, we have all had a 'near miss' at sometime.

All keep safe!

atb

7diaw

 

 

Edited by 7daysinaweek
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On 19/11/2021 at 09:12, mossy835 said:

i worked on a big estate, caught in the tractor hitch, cut my big toe off, 

I've been to a similar one when I was in the FS, he stood on the hitch as he was loading to reach a switch but slid at the wrong time. Biggest turn out for us to farms was combines catching fire!

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I was talking to my old man today and asked him if he could remember anything else that happened. Not to him this time, but the neighbours farm had a pig man fall in the slurry pit and drown, must have been 40 or more years ago now but still fresh in the memory for dad. What an awful way to go.

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41 minutes ago, adzyvilla said:

I was talking to my old man today and asked him if he could remember anything else that happened. Not to him this time, but the neighbours farm had a pig man fall in the slurry pit and drown, must have been 40 or more years ago now but still fresh in the memory for dad. What an awful way to go.

My parents best friends owned a pig farm and my sister and I would play with their kids.

We were investigating the slurry pit which always looked solid enough to walk on ( but wasn’t ) when the lad I was playing with pushed me. I can’t recall how I got out but my sister ( who is older than me and remembers it well ) said I went right under. 
I can recall being hosed down outside by the stand pipe, and went home in some of his clothes. We remained friends however, but don’t see a lot of each other, and he still lives in that house although the pig farm ceased to be when his Dad retired. 

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7 hours ago, 39TDS said:

A good friend was killed exactly the same way this year, hasn't got to court yet as far as I know.

Mate in the box knew very well it wasn't safe and so did the farmer driving the loader, for the sake of £100 on a scaffold tower my mates dead. A tenner on a ratchet strap would have saved his life by keeping the box on the forks, farmer probably had one and mate probably had one in his truck but lets save 5 minutes by not bothering. Stupid and tragic!

Just to make it even worse his son was with him and watched it happen.

Not the first time and won't be the last because for some reason some farmers are just idiots.

Occasionally there are unforeseen accidents but very nearly always they are easily avoidable. I have farmed all of my 57 years, so did my dad and so did his and so have most of my relations. There have been one or two lucky escapes but no serious injuries. The lucky escapes could easily have turned out much worse but the overriding factor is it was obviously dangerous and almost inevitable that someone was about to get hurt. How can you possibly be too pressed for time to be careful? The first rule is always that everybody goes home unharmed.

I have worked on other farms and can't believe how many times I have seen people put their lives in obvious serious danger for absolutely no reason at all.

I know it is wrong but one of the problems is location and utilizing whatever machine is available , 

One instance I can think of was we had a big flint barn with a tiled roof that was at one time thatch and had quite a deep pitch on the roof . depending on the wind direction we often got the odd tile slip down , we tried to get a Cherry Picker to the barn but do to the location it couldn't get anywhere near it ,so we would stick the cage we had made up with a safety rail on to the load all with the telescopic jib and the farm worker would put me onto the roof below the slipped tile , now the scary bit , or should I say the suicidal bit ,  I would then put a small ladder up to the gap where the tile should be  and use a cordless drill to screw it back on to the batten , this prevented it slipping again , two of us were in the cage and believe it or not I felt perfectly safe and touch wood we never had any mishaps .

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