OT--Sad Reminder of tractor safety

[scott-SC]

AIKEN, S.C. — A 51-year-old Aiken County man has died after a vintage tractor he had been working on rolled on top of him.

Aiken County Coroner Tim Carlton says Carl Glover was pronounced dead at around 2:30 p.m. Tuesday.

Authorities say Glover had finished making repairs on his 1967 Ford Model 5000 tractor and was trying to move it when it overturned and struck him.

Glover"s brother found him later when he stopped by to drop off some mail.

Carlton says Glover died from multiple injuries, and the death has been ruled an accident.

 

[Ultradog MN]

It is a good idea to practice good safety habits at all times. And it is good to be reminded of such.
But some times it irks me that the news makes such a big deal out of a common tractor accident.
In the US we kill around 40,000 people anually in auto accidents and injure another 2.5 million.
I'll bet if you compared tractors to cars - hour to hour of use you would find tractors are much safer than automobiles. But the news just likes to sensationalize things. And so you get guys who will skid logs by chaining to the front axle and pulling backwards because they are terrified of their tractor.

 

[jackinok]

lets see ultradog,,according to OSHA agriculture is the SINGLE most hazadous occupation in the US(and its engaged in by @ 2% of the population)injury rates are highest among children under 15,and adults over 65.with the highest death rates are suffered by those over 60.
In Canada its every year listed in the top three most hazardous.in the US alone there average family owns something like 2.3 cars, but like i say 2% of the population are farmers.not a very good per capita safety rate.I like to explain it like this,if you had 5 people in a farm family and one was killed in a accident,thats a higher death rate than the ENTIRE loss of life in ww2.
look carefully at the age groups,under 15 is sort of understandable as having the highest accident rate.but look at the folks having reportable accidents over 60 and the most killed are over 65!either these guys are retiring and moving out to small farms where they get into trouble,or they are simply negligent do to familiarity with their equipment.when you consider those figures pulling a log off the front with no chance of a flip does make perfect sense.now me and you know we can lift the end of a log out of the dirt and drag it around fairly safely,but the stats say most folks dont. so till they do,pulling off the front is still the way to go.

 

[36 Coupe]

Where do you hitch when pulling from the froht?

 

[jackinok]

i hook right on center of bumper,and yes, before someone jumps me I know its not right! but,we know theres never been a farm tractor built that designed to skid logs either.theres safe ways of doing it,up to a point, but if you dont have the proper tools or if theres a question about it, i would a whole lot rather see a guy err on the side of caution.would be interesting to hear the rest of this story,like what exactly was the cimcumstances that led to this tractor turning over .maybe they meant he had finished,was tinkering with engine adjustments tried to start it from ground and it ran over him.or maybe finishing up and was putting rear tires on and it fell off jacks and pinned him.sad thing either way...

 

[KL-VA]

Center of bumper works for me.

I skidded trees off the hill most of the day Sunday with a logging chain and my 8N. Not for one minute did I feel timid or overly careful. Every one was hooked to the FRONT and pulled in reverse gear.

Better safe than a sad statistic.

 

[36 Coupe]

You can pull the casting ears off the block pulling that way.The radius rods may share some of the load but pulling that way will cost you an engine block.Ive seen a few Farm All C tractors with the front end pulled off the tractor.Plenty of logs are skidded with Ford tractors.I have a log hauler that lifts the log off the ground.No mud to dull the saw mill blade.

 

[Ultradog MN]

Jack,
While your statistics are good they may not be entirely accurate as it pertains to this conversation.
There are many facets to agriculture and many ways to be injured or killed. A couple of examples off the top of my head are being gored by a bull, kicked by a horse, electrocuted while wiring a barn or falling off a silo. None of these have anything to do with tractors. But they do make agriculture a hazardous occupation.
My question is: Hour for hour are tractors more dangerous to life and limb than cars?
You seem to think so. I can't say as I know.
I do think that tractor accidents are like plane crashes in that when one happens the media thinks it is more newsworthy and so the accident is broadcast far and wide.
This gives the appearance of flying or tractoring being rather hazardous. And yet, in the case of flying it is easily is provable that planes - hour for hour - are far safer than cars.
A lot of that safety record in planes is due to regulation. Not just any dufus can hop in a plane and go off into the blue like he can hop on a tractor and start skidding logs.
I happen to believe that a man with his wits about him is entirely safe on a tractor. If he doesn't cut corners and keeps his equipment up he may even be safer on his tractor than in his car because he's not having to dodge other bad drivers on our highways.
I also think that a man who doesn't understand a tractor - it's limitations, geometry and things like the effects of ballasting, traction, inclines and horsepower is more of a hazard to himself than a man who knows tractors and pushes it for all it's worth. Another way to say it is: If he's scared of it he's dangerous.
That is why I look askance at someone who would pull from the front.
I see it as a Cinderella way of doing things because I know that a tractor will only put about 50% of it's horsepower to the ground going backwards.
If you want to putter around driving backwards that's your business.
But when you start publicly advocating it and backing up your claims with distorted statistics then I will argue with you. I might even think of you as knowing so little about or being so afraid of your tractor that you are a bit dangerous with the thing.

 

[Ultradog MN]

Not often I agree with you Coupe. But not only the casting ears off the block, the radius rod sockets out of the tranny too. They are not made to pull from the front.

 

[oldtanker]

Jerry you got that right. In the last month there have been 2 guys in ND smothered in grain. Have not seen one tractor accident in MN or ND in the news that resulted in a death in the same time. And that aint counting the kid who got his arm caught in an auger.

Rick

 

[Ron-MO]

Well put Ultradog. When I recently got hammered for replacing battery electolyte and not providing a disclaimer with my post, I guess I just assume that people will use common sense, but in today's world I suppose that is asking a bit much. With that said, I have gotten into some situations with tractors and had a couple close calls, but I learned from it and went on about my business. But I agree, I feel much safer on my tractors than driving down the road, as I have no control over the other guy who is playing with his phone, or daydreaming. Just last week my wife was driving along minding her own business when a deer ran out in front of her, heavily damaging her truck. But maybe that is an agricultural related accident since it involves an animal? See how things can be interpreted differently depending on how one looks at it?

 

[old-9]

I just searched the news paper for this accident Aiken County Coroner Tim Carlton said Glover was working on his 1967 model 5000 Ford tractor and had apparently completed the repairs when he attempted to move the vehicle.



The tractor was sitting on a slight decline and had an extended bucket that may have caused an unequal distribution of the weight, causing it to overturn and strike Glover, Carlton said.

The victim's brother stopped by the property about 1:45 p.m. to drop off mail and discovered the accident.


He most likely had the loader raised to access the engine, I know I raise mine when I work on it. joe

 

[Ron-MO]

Rings a bell, since I own a tractor just like that and mine also has a loader. I know my loader is seemingly too large for the tractor (a Ford 7210 loader), and with the loader it just feels top heavy, even with loaded rear tires, especially on an incline. Going to keep this in mind as a good portion of my land is on an incline (some of it a severe incline). I like my 5000, but with that loader it is near helpless except for on level dry ground, and I have buried it a few times if the least big soggy. It helps to put a rear bale spike on and stab a bale to help equalize the weight while carrying a bale on the front.

 

[souNdguy]

ditto that for sure.

an ag related injure is just that.

I know I've personally raised that statistic myself.

My doctor commented, quite strongly to me last year that 8 out of the 10 times i had been to her office previously were for ag related injuries... ie.. putting some metal object thru a hand or leg.. animal bites / scratches / kicks.. .. been knocked down.. fell off a few things.. cut myself a few times pretty good... had plenty of antibiotics and some wound cleaning xrays and whatnot...

i'm sure all that stuff gets reported as when they person at the front desk 'codes' the injury they always ask me to describe it so they can figure out what code to put it under.. animal bite / kick / puncture, fall, laceration..e tc.. etc..

all that said. I love the rops i put on my 5000

soundguy

 

[jackinok]

lets see ultradog,engine compartment of a tractor is for the most part open exposing a person to moving,hot,all kinds of dangerous parts,they openly pull discs ,chisels, harrows, mowers,have open spinning pto shafts ,and a hundered other things .so yes ,in anyones most wildest dreams they would be more dangerous just from their very nature.And of course your right theres 1000 ways to die on a farm .Personally,i think the reason these accidents are all ways written up is that it is so rare ,its not an everyday thing,just because folks these days are so far from the farm,and that so few folks do it.A car wreck is just another car wreck and is back page news if it hits the paper at all anymore.( besides the fact that tractor accidents tend to be bloody gory affairs which is allways good press these days).
and yes ive seen tractors pulled in half,broken about every way you can tear one up.and ive been saying for years that the best way to skid logs would be to pull from the center of tractor underneath,but no one has built a hitch there yet!LOLmost of us very quickly learn to pick up the end of a log,or the whole log itself.and when we do we are not really skidding a log.but simply dragging the butt.but IF a guy has to skid one,actually drag it on the ground with both ends touching ,where theres every possibilty of it hanging up,the fronts safest.Pull it only far enough you can hitch it correctly and move it safely.I do it only if i cant get to it to hook from rear for some reason.If I'm CLEARING land i try to make trees fall where i can hitch from rear safely.If I'm cleaning up after a storm thats not always possible so i get them out to where i can hook up safely only.unfortunately this is when they are most likely to hang also,so i hitch from front.

 

[JMOR]

Was this an ag accident?

Or a train accident?

 

[jackinok]

heres another way of looking at this,
every car accident in the US should legally be repoted to some one,police,insurance ,etc etc. even the smallest injury should be reported.this makes book keeping realativly simple.add that to the fact that every american family owns over two cars and its not at all unreasonable to see accident stats high.
in the ag feild,theres no such reporting system.for every accident we hear of theres probably a thousand or more actual injuries we dont hear of.serious cuts,broken bones,punctures,men women and children crippled for life ,etc etc. All we tend to hear of are fatalities.And this doesnt even take into account any long term effects of the actual farming itself.Add to this the fact that theres realativly few of us,and less every day ,involved in this( in my county alone,we lost 30% of our farmers according to the last census)and the real accident rates would be much much higher.Yes,undoubtably agriculture is a broad term,but still the number of folks invoved in it is a realitvly few.Accidents at grain handling facilities and things are often reported as industrial accidents.And are treated as such.Or maybe as a ag related accident.This leaves a huge number of actual on farm accidents unreported,and just the ones that are reported makes farming one of the top if not the top most dangerous occupations.We simply hear of the deaths becase they are investigated and therfore reported by police.We all agree i'm sure that the more confident we become on a machine ,tractor etc that the less it seems to us as a threat.But look at the age groups reported in these type deals.We can kind of figure that the most injuries are reported by folks under fifteen ,simply because they do not stop and think ,or they simply know no better.But look at the death stats, over 65 suffer the most reported deaths? does those stats anywhere show in-experience?.most farmers today in the US are over 65 according to all sources.So this could be one reason obviously,but then again you would think that these were the folks with the most experience also.They are the ones who SHOULD in theory be the least likely to get in trouble.this sort of throws the idea that the more familiar a person becomes on a farm setting ,and the more familiar he becomes with equipment the more safe he is into the wind!Theoretically the young folks should be the ones to die more often,but theres a simple explanation for this.first of all very young children tend to believe their parents ( regardless of wheather they are wrong or not) and iF you tell them to stay away from something or they will get hurt,they will.but as they age and become teens they begin to question this theory,they are thinking of other things,they want to be somewhere else and consequently they have more serious accidents.then they get to be old enough to have kids.And they tend to again tend to be more safety consience simply for the kids sake.But what happens when we get old?we tend to think weve seen it all ,weve done this stuff for years,our balance eyesight strenghth begins to be less and we again start to take chances that while we KNOW is not right, if we even stop to think of them at all, simply because weve got by with it for 40 years.and thats when it happens.A simple case of familiarity breeds contempt.so in reality the stats show,even from the few reported accidents, that a more experienced operator is more likely to be killed.maybe its because hes done it more and the law of averages catches up to him,but a healthy respect for this stuff aint at all bad,its when we start blowing and going that we get our selves in trouble most times.

 

[JerryS]

There are lots of dangerous jobs out there, but conventional wisdom would have you think that it's only cops and firemen who risk their lives when they go to work. Of course, they do everything they can to enlarge that perception (20 and out, you know), when actually they're way down in the list of hazardous occupations.

 

[Ultradog MN]

I think tractors are a lot like guns.
Guns are rather simple machines designed for a simple purpose. There is a right way and a wrong way to use a gun.
Some people understand guns. Maybe they learned about them as a kid, or in the military or just have a knack for them. They know about safety, simple ballistics, care, cleaning, aiming and firing. They are unafraid, even confident around guns but they are in no way careless with them.
Other people are terrified by guns. They don't understand them, aren't relaxed around them, don't know how to handle, load, point, aim or fire a gun.
Maybe those people could be taught about guns so they aren't afraid of them. So they wouldn't misuse the gun and possibly hurt themselves or others.
Many things can be taught to many people. But not everything can be taught to everybody.
There are some people I would gladly lend one of my guns or my tractors to. Because I know they have the understanding, appreciation and confidence to use them safely and correctly. Those people I know would use them Effectively too. And not use them in ways they were not designed to be used.
If I saw him use my gun for Any other thing but to put holes in objects from a distance or if I saw him use my tractor to pull logs out backwards I would know then and there that he did not have a good understanding of the thing.
So to pervent him from hurting himself, my tractor or my gun I would ask he return it immediately and would never give him the use of it again.

 

[elmersooner]

I'm a farmer-firefighter, guess I'm screwed.....

 

[jackinok]

yes sir you can absolutly!.BUT you can also tear the front end out or break your tractor half in two ,by hitting the clutch and letting the front end drop while skidding one from the rear and it hangs up..and I'll bet you a dollar to a dognut youve never seen too many pulled apart by pulling a log from the front,everyone ive seen has been stuck and some guy hooked a chain on front axle a tried to pull it out..but youve probably seen quite a few with the fronts broken out by dropping them!shoot, if were talking about the right way theres no reason to EVER use a farm tractor to skid logs! its simply not the right tool to begin with no way ,no how.And theres no really absolute safe way of doing it.skidding a log with all the weight and both ends on the ground is not safe for anyone with any farm tractor.picking up the end with a log hauler is not skidding one!i use the same rig or similar for moving logs .but if i absolutly HAVE to skid one i'll drag it backwards thank you,ive helped get guys out from under tractors before.oddly enough none were backing up when they went over.

 

[36 Coupe]

If you insist on being stupid at least run the chain under the tractor and hitch to the stationary hitch under the 8n differential housing.You cant do this on the 9N.If you skid logs at a slow speed the tractor will stall or wheels will slip if a log hangs up.I have been skidding logs over 50 years with farm tractors.A tractor can kill you in 1 second if you get stupid.Same with horses or bulls.

 

[36 Coupe]

Ive skidded logs with a horse.I wonder what he would have done if I hitched the log to his front end.Since I never used breaching while skidding the collar and harness would have pulled off over his head.

 

[jackinok]

never must have used too many horses or youd know they are ALL hitched to the front end!REALLY hard to put a yoke or collar on the backend.

 

[jackinok]

try to calm down and go back and read my posts ,i pull them the same as you and most every one else,AND if you read carefully youll find i said that the safest place to pull one from is the center(frontwards OR backwards) and that one of these enterprising young welders on here need to market us a hitch that bolts there.Might be interested to know ive skidded them for 60 years ,and im still using the original 9n with NO FRONT END DAMAGE whatsoever! aint that strange,,,But ive pulled two guys out from under tractors skidding logs from the rear,and ive even pulled one out from under one that was plowing with a moldboard plow on level ground!calm down go back and read what i wrote,and youll find that i said only if i didnt have the proper tools and i couldnt get to it with the rear I would pull one off the front every time.your not going to flip a tractor in reverse,it aint happening( unless of course you turn one over sideways).,How many folks here have ran a loader on a 8 or 9 n ?you think that wont tear up a front end?how many have used a front cultivator,slung a snow plow on front ,pulled one in a tractor pull and add 3 or four hundred pounds of weight off the front do you think that wont hurt your front end or break your tractor in exactly the same way?carry on skidding them from the rear,I do too,but if i have one i have to move that i think will hang up Ill still pull off the front of mine thank you.if thats being stupid so be it,,,

 

[elmersooner]

I think the biggest accident was probably in the tractor drivers shorts. YIKES!!!!