Safety/emergency tip

K.G.

I putting this up as we face into the silage season.in the event you need to call the emergency services and you dont know your location ,go to your nearest esb pole and give the pole number to the operater and they will have your exact location.use 911 as it will be picked by any available network or satelite

Mooooo

Sticky this for a bit maybe? A lot of spots with poor coverage or hard to describe areas. Only heard this from a neighbour the other day

patsy_mccabe

Can you use the Eircode for your house?
We had a family emergency a while back. Needed an ambulance. When I was on the phone to the operator, it sounded like she was on Google Earth or similar when I was telling her where we were.
We got someone to go to the main road exit too and told them the type of car to follow.

Muckit

Eircode is grand if help is needed to a house, but pole is excellent one if out the field or in yard where most farm accidents occur.

Thanks for posting OP.

mikeoneilly

How accurate is an eircode?

For anyone with smartphones what's the handiest way to get co-ordinates?

Muckit

mikeoneilly wrote: »

How accurate is an eircode?

Right to the house site. Open the eircode site and find your own house on it and you'II see.

dazed+confused

mikeoneilly wrote: »

How accurate is an eircode?

For anyone with smartphones what's the handiest way to get co-ordinates?

The Eircode is specific to the house, I've never come across one that has been off target.

mikeoneilly

What's the handiest way to get GPS coordinates on a fone if there's no pole handy

davidk1394

mikeoneilly wrote: »

What's the handiest way to get GPS coordinates on a fone if there's no pole handy

Open up Google. Turn on your location and tap where you are. It should come up on the bottom of the screen

gctest50

Man down alarm thingy is what you need

Send GPS text message to a few people, should be a few different apps out there

https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=and.dev.mandown.alert

_Brian

gctest50 wrote: »

Man down alarm thingy is what you need

Send GPS text message to a few people, should be a few different apps out there

https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=and.dev.mandown.alert

We used mam down alarms at work and threw them out.
Hunker under a machine to adjust something and next thing you know alarm goes off and annoys themhell of everyone. Result was no one took them seriously, kinda like the boy who cried wolf.

I'd also imagine anything that "constantly monitors" anything on your phone will war up battery life.

WoollyDot

Guys, afaik the emergency services don't use eircode.
I live a bit in the country – no name on road or number on house – and had to phone for an ambulance last November (2016).
When I tried to give them the eircode they said to just give them directions, they don't use eircode.
Crazy, I know, but that was my experience.
I had to give them directions as they were getting to me but the ambulance was there in 20 mins and they were brilliant. All well in the end thank heavens.

Gravelly

Autoaddress is an app used by a lot of first responders.

mikeoneilly

davidk1394 wrote: »

Open up Google. Turn on your location and tap where you are. It should come up on the bottom of the screen

I don't understand that

Any chance you could explain it again?

Boaty

WoollyDot wrote: »

Guys, afaik the emergency services don't use eircode.
I live a bit in the country – no name on road or number on house – and had to phone for an ambulance last November (2016).
When I tried to give them the eircode they said to just give them directions, they don't use eircode.
Crazy, I know, but that was my experience.
I had to give them directions as they were getting to me but the ambulance was there in 20 mins and they were brilliant. All well in the end thank heavens.

I was told that the ambulances use Eircodes, I'd suggest that everyone learns theirs as it could mean the difference between an ambulance getting there on time and saving a life or not.

patsy_mccabe

The National Ambulance Service, have Eircodes loaded into their Computer Aided Dispatch System (CAD) and went live in operation in February 2016.

From;
http://www.dccae.gov.ie/en-ie/communications/topics/Postcodes/latest-news/Pages/National-Ambulance-Services.aspx

PDVerse

WoollyDot wrote: »

Guys, afaik the emergency services don't use eircode.
I live a bit in the country – no name on road or number on house – and had to phone for an ambulance last November (2016).
When I tried to give them the eircode they said to just give them directions, they don't use eircode.
Crazy, I know, but that was my experience.
I had to give them directions as they were getting to me but the ambulance was there in 20 mins and they were brilliant. All well in the end thank heavens.

National Ambulance Service do use Eircode.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TvwSE4IpnIA

enda1

K.G. wrote: »

I putting this up as we face into the silage season.in the event you need to call the emergency services and you dont know your location ,go to your nearest esb pole and give the pole number to the operater and they will have your exact location.use 911 as it will be picked by any available network or satelite

Does "911" definitely work in Ireland? I'd always have just thought 999 or 112.

gctest50

_Brian wrote: »

We used mam down alarms at work and threw them out.
Hunker under a machine to adjust something and next thing you know alarm goes off and annoys themhell of everyone. .........

Must've been sh!te ones

Anyway the motionless timer is adjustable on this app and it has an SOS button


http://www.mandownapp.com

The motionless timer can be set, in hourly increments, for up to 24 hours.





SOS Button: The ManDown App also gives users the option to proactively press the “SOS” button to send an immediate alert, unrelated to lack of mobility. This is a great tool for personal safety or medical alerts, as it immediately sends an “SOS” alert to notify others of the user’s location and convey their need for help.

.

jimmy G M

enda1 wrote: »

Does "911" definitely work in Ireland? I'd always have just thought 999 or 112.

911 is the american emergency number.

The numbers for Ireland are 999 or 112.

112 is also used European wide, hence why it is used in Ireland as well as 999. See website below.

https://www.112.ie/

Another number to save into your phone is ICE (in case of emergency)

Eg - ICE Wife Jenny, so if something happens someone can scroll down and knows who to call in an emergency. (assuming they can unlock your phone :rolleyes:)

gctest50

0118 999 881 999 119 725
…3

.

enda1

jimmy G M wrote: »

911 is the american emergency number.

The numbers for Ireland are 999 or 112.

112 is also used European wide, hence why it is used in Ireland as well as 999. See website below.

https://www.112.ie/

Another number to save into your phone is ICE (in case of emergency)

Eg - ICE Wife Jenny, so if something happens someone can scroll down and knows who to call in an emergency. (assuming they can unlock your phone :rolleyes:)

Yeah exactly. Odd that no one seemed to blink in the thread up to now!

blue5000

Mooooo wrote: »

Sticky this for a bit maybe? A lot of spots with poor coverage or hard to describe areas. Only heard this from a neighbour the other day

Good idea Mooooo, we'll sticky this one for a month.

The esb emergency number is 1850 372 999

This year in the heat the wires are going to sag a bit lower and it's easy snag one with the spout of a harvester.

K.G.

jimmy G M wrote: »

911 is the american emergency number.

The numbers for Ireland are 999 or 112.

112 is also used European wide, hence why it is used in Ireland as well as 999. See website below.

https://www.112.ie/

Another number to save into your phone is ICE (in case of emergency)

Eg - ICE Wife Jenny, so if something happens someone can scroll down and knows who to call in an emergency. (assuming they can unlock your phone :rolleyes:)

My apoligies you are correct

ganmo

On iphones ya can access ice numbers from the unlock screen once they've been set using the health app

tphase

enda1 wrote: »

Does "911" definitely work in Ireland? I'd always have just thought 999 or 112.

911 does work in Ireland but as others have pointed out, it's the emergency number in the US.
112 is the best number to use, it works with any network provider. 999 only works with your own provider

Mooooo

West cork rapid response if ye see it fundraising anywhere do support as they can get to some places faster than ambulances. They have a kitted out four wheel drive that costs a bit to keep manned and on the road.

Reggie.

Mooooo wrote: »

West cork rapid response if ye see it fundraising anywhere do support as they can get to some places faster than ambulances. They have a kitted out four wheel drive that costs a bit to keep manned and on the road.

It's some job that wagon

locky76

Folks, given that we work in the most dangerous industry in Ireland should there be a re-evaluation of how we view Heath & safety?
I have to add that I work in applying health & safety although I have done plenty of things down through the years which I'm or articulately proud of and have broken bones, suffered injuries and generally had a laidsez faire attitude to safety.
However the general principle of health & safety is that if proporrly implemented it will cut deaths in half within a short period of time- there will be 60 people saved over a 5 year period.
I think it would be a great service for independent safety experts from an Agri background to come in annually and carry out a complete audit of a farmer's safety system and make 5 implementable recommendations for the farmer. I think this would be a reasonable amount of improvements.
The biggest thing with health & safety is that it's very profitable for the farmer to implement as it dramatically reduces the chances of them getting injured therefore they can keep working away.
I'd be interested in your thoughts.

Mod note H&S thread moved in here as we have a sticky on H&S for the Month

Water John

An analysis of past deaths and injuries should inform any action or training.

This is very unscientific of me but I give a couple things here.
A good many of those killed in the last while have been elderly, often by stock.
Farmers are working harder and longer hours, a good bit of it to do with regulations, to make a living. This makes them more vulnerable to error and accident.
Almost all farmers nowadays work alone.

The objective is to minimise the number of deaths and injuries. There is a danger of putting systems, more paperwork in place as a bureaucratic solution, that actually will not achieve the desired result.

dzer2

Totally agree that the dept should hire an Independent safety company to audit all farms on safety.

First 5 yrs should be allocated to getting farmers and workers up to date with the current laws and regs.

After that a penalty for anyone that hasn't made a reasonable effort to improve.
Deaths and serious injury needs to be reduced massively.


It is a culture that needs replacing which will take time and money.

I do an audit here every year with the young lads. We first talk about any incidents that happened that remains in the memory. We move on to walking around to see what looks like an accident waiting to happen.

alps

You can have all the safety audits you want, it's about mindset, not necessarily facilities....

The audit will not stop people walking under loaders, walking between the tractor and the wall, stomach tubing the calf in front of the cow, using the grinding disc without the goggles...

dzer2

alps wrote: »

You can have all the safety audits you want, it's about mindset, not necessarily facilities....

The audit will not stop people walking under loaders, walking between the tractor and the wall, stomach tubing the calf in front of the cow, using the grinding disc without the goggles...

This is the culture I am talking about the change needs to be implemented with common place mentality. Its common sense really and a need to allocate the time properly. Loads of aged farmers around here slobbering until 10 at night but rarely ever doing anything before 8 in the morning.

Sam Kade

dzer2 wrote: »

This is the culture I am talking about the change needs to be implemented with common place mentality. Its common sense really and a need to allocate the time properly. Loads of aged farmers around here slobbering until 10 at night but rarely ever doing anything before 8 in the morning.

So if they start before 8am they will less likely have an accident?

Water John

Well, that's a 14 hour day.

emaherx

Water John wrote: »

Well, that's a 14 hour day.

That has a lot to do with safety records on farms. Long days, farmers always on duty it's easy to get complacent.

foxy farmer

dzer2 wrote: »

Totally agree that the dept should hire an Independent safety company to audit all farms on safety.

First 5 yrs should be allocated to getting farmers and workers up to date with the current laws and regs.

After that a penalty for anyone that hasn't made a reasonable effort to improve.
Deaths and serious injury needs to be reduced massively.


It is a culture that needs replacing which will take time and money.

I do an audit here every year with the young lads. We first talk about any incidents that happened that remains in the memory. We move on to walking around to see what looks like an accident waiting to happen.

HSA is quite suitable. Why replicate their duties? No need for another money wasting organisation. Bord Bia are doing safety audits as it stands. Get the HSA out onto farms and let them wield a little power instead of the usual case where they carry out investigations after accidents.
Oh yeah all the signs in the world plastered up around farm yards won't prevent people from having accidents.

ganmo

From some comments on here I think a lot of older farmers would be quite content to die on their farm, so how can we prevent those deaths?

Muckit

Every farmer has a responsibility to look after their own safety and the safety of their workers, but a genuine interest and commitment from the DAFM would be nice too. The farm safety scheme was a case in point. A minimum spend of over €2000 in order to apply. This ruled out a large number of small part time farmers straight away. I went ahead and carried out a number of safety measures on my own bat, but how many didn't?

Health and safety checks would need to be viewed in a positive light. And any faults found should not be penalised without a sufficient time frame offered to farmer to rectify the situation.

As someone else has also pointed out, it's as much about safe systems of work as faulty equipment. These are things that would not be picked up by an audit.

Near misses are never recorded. Mores the pity. We only ever hear about the deaths.

kowtow

locky76 wrote:

The biggest thing with health & safety is that it's very profitable for the farmer to implement as it dramatically reduces the chances of them getting injured therefore they can keep working away. I'd be interested in your thoughts.

I'd have to disagree with you there, at least in terms of the way profits are understood on most irish farms.

The culture encouraged on farms is to measure profits and costs in cash terms and mitigated future risks ... whilst economically valid.. are hardly a cash profit especially when we all assume that we can control the outcome.

Sam Kade

ganmo wrote: »

From some comments on here I think a lot of older farmers would be quite content to die on their farm, so how can we prevent those deaths?

Why do you single out older farmers?

Sam Kade

emaherx wrote: »

That has a lot to do with safety records on farms. Long days, farmers always on duty it's easy to get complacent.

And then a wagon load of paper work on top of long days to add even more pressure.

ganmo

Sam Kade wrote: »

Why do you single out older farmers?

look at the age profile of this years deaths

Water John

There seems to be the inevitable tendency, by some, to apply the apparent solution, that won't work.
A bit of new thinking needed here.
The solutions, used in an employer + employees situation, won't work here.

Dunedin

alps wrote: »

You can have all the safety audits you want, it's about mindset, not necessarily facilities....

The audit will not stop people walking under loaders, walking between the tractor and the wall, stomach tubing the calf in front of the cow, using the grinding disc without the goggles...

+1

emaherx

Sam Kade wrote: »

Why do you single out older farmers?

Most at risk of accidents are the youngest and the oldest. We can educate our youngest farmers to be safe. The older ones tend to be less open to change.

einn32

emaherx wrote: »

Most at risk of accidents are the youngest and the oldest. We can educate our youngest farmers to be safe. The older ones tend to be less open to change.

Doing a safety audit is a good idea. Set it on a repetitive basis maybe. Take an hour to walk the farm with an audit list. Think of it as important as checking stock etc. The HSA have printable ones. Might save injury/life. Influence younger generation.

The older generation are a tough one. How do you teach an auld lad farming all his life that he's doing unsafe practices.

Water John

The problem with older people often, is that waht they have always got away with, they can't any longer as they are slowing down in reaction time. Esp with stock.
See the BIL with the bull. You could caution, all you like, just end up closing your eyes and hoping.

Some also don't see the diff between bravery/cowardice and stupidity.

_Brian

Good to see the topic getting aired again.

One thing to remember is the ratio of injuries too. Fatalities are awful, but in general terms it's widely accepted that for every fatality there are ~10 "permanent life altering injuries, that would be lost limb, lost eye sight, paralysis etc, there would be ~100 "lost day cases" where through a minor injury the person was unable to work for one or more days.

A simple walk round mightn't see anything that would cause a fatality, but who knows, you might save some fellas eye or even prevent a broken finger. It all adds up to a better working environment.

lakill Farm

I bought an A frame on Saturday along with a weight box for the back of the tractor. Reduce chance of crush injuries when putting on implements on A frame and weight box to reduce chance or flipping the tractor

onrail

From experiences in the construction industry it's fear of financial penalties that drive change in 95% of cases. Very few construction workers honestly believe that wearing a hardhat, attending the SafePass etc actually reduces risk of injury or death.

Nevertheless, such a fear has lead to a significant reduction in injuries/fatalities in the sector.

Likewise, a change in farming will (unfortunately) need to be driven by fear of repercussions.

Carry out unannounced DAFM/HSA spot-inspections, provide a reasonable timeframe for correction, enlist the assistance of Teagasc/Ag. advisors if necessary. Enforce penalties for non-compliance.

A cynical approach - but something needs to be done