Farm accident stories...be careful folks!!

Kovu · 25-02-2015 6:51pm

dzer2 wrote: »

Have a heading gate here between the 2 calving pens for that messing.

So do we :rolleyes:

dzer2 · 25-02-2015 7:51pm

Chemical Byrne wrote: »

Was talking to someone in work whose neighbour had a bad accident on the farm a few years back. Father and son were servicing a large power harrow. Son was underneath finishing off whatever bit of work and father didn't realise he was still there and turned on the PTO. Son was very very badly torn up, practically disembowelled from what I'm told. Somehow he survived. Appaently when he was in the ambulance whatever happened, hit a bump or something, but a lot of his innards including his liver partially fell out of his abdom.

This is not an accident it is down right stupidity. Never start up a machine if you cant see everyone thats around

onyerbikepat · 25-02-2015 8:03pm

dzer2 wrote: »

This is not an accident it is down right stupidity. Never start up a machine if you cant see everyone thats around

Jeez. He didn't know he was around. C'mon very easy for something like that to happen, when you think about it.

In industry, they call it Lockout-Tagout. Basically they put a lock on electric box etc and the guy inside in the machine servicing it has a key.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lockout-tagout

dzer2 · 25-02-2015 8:24pm

onyerbikepat wrote: »

Jeez. He didn't know he was around. C'mon very easy for something like that to happen, when you think about it.

In industry, they call it Lockout-Tagout. Basically they put a lock on electric box etc and the guy inside in the machine servicing it has a key.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lockout-tagout

No. read the story the 2 of them were working on the machine.

Told a story on here a while back its where lockout tag out came from. Friend and workmate of mine killed when a floor worker tripped back in a whole electrical panel at 6 am

onyerbikepat · 25-02-2015 8:30pm

I heard that story when it happened at the time. What I heard was one of them came along and didn't realise that the other was in under the power harrow. He didn't even know he was servicing it.

dzer2 · 25-02-2015 8:35pm

onyerbikepat wrote: »

I heard that story when it happened at the time. What I heard was one of them came along and didn't realise that the other was in under the power harrow. He didn't even know he was servicing it.

Fair enough the OP said the 2 of them were working on the machine

Kovu · 25-02-2015 8:46pm

I don't know if this was shared yet but it does highlight some particular issues.
Appreciate the GAA getting behind this as well. Am on phone so hope this embeds.

Tonyandthewhale · 25-02-2015 8:50pm

Plenty of talk on here about the dangers of working alone. It's all well and good having a phone in your pocket but it's not much use if you're knocked out cold or pinned under an animal/piece of machinery and can't reach it. Likewise it's certainly a good idea to let people know where you are but it's not much use just hoping they'll come looking for you in the offchance when you've had an accident. A system needs to be put in place.

Only recently I've gotten into the sport of caving and they've got some nice safety procedures in place. For instance they have what's called a 'call-out'. That's where you call a pre-arranged contact just before you go underground and tell them where you're going and for how long and you give them an exact deadline of when you'll be back safe and sound on the surface. It's then your responsibility to get out of the cave before your deadline so you can call off the search-party. If you miss it someone automatically comes looking for you.
It's arranged this way because obviously you can't ring 999 when you're a mile underground but it's a nice idea all the same, not relying on the person in trouble to sound the alarm but instead relying on the fella who's alright to sound the all-clear.

frazzledhome · 25-02-2015 9:00pm

Kovu wrote: »

I don't know if this was shared yet but it does highlight some particular issues.
Appreciate the GAA getting behind this as well. Am on phone so hope this embeds.

Anyone know where the helmet worn by the last guy can be sourced? The ones we have are horrid yokes and I sick chasing lads to wear them.

gctest50 · 25-02-2015 9:09pm

Tonyandthewhale wrote: »

Plenty of talk on here about the dangers of working alone. It's all well and good having a phone in your pocket but it's not much use if you're knocked out cold or pinned under an animal/piece of machinery and can't reach it. ..........

man-down-alarms sense if you stop moving

- alarm, then start dialing numbers

standalone ones can do all sorts :

http://www.lonealert.co.uk/lone-worker-devices/man-down-plus

http://www.islesystems.com/products_dedicated.html

next-best-thing sorta yoke :

http://www.mandownapp.com/

loads more - ask someone who's used a few different kinds before you buy

.

ganmo · 26-02-2015 1:06am

frazzledhome wrote: »

Anyone know where the helmet worn by the last guy can be sourced? The ones we have are horrid yokes and I sick chasing lads to wear them.

Looks like a skateboard helmet
http://images.evo.com/imgp/1500/42330/244847/bell-sports-skateboard-helmet-flat-black.jpg
Should be able to get one in a bike shop

Zr105 · 26-02-2015 8:29am

Tea 1000 wrote: »

You might be right regarding the statistics of teenagers and big machines, but that shouldn't be the basis for excusing it. Put it another way, take for example a sensible 35 year old who drives a lot and has a very careful attitude, passed the test 18 years previously. They want to tow a trailer that has a GVW of greater than 750kgs. They need to go and get a special license now. But not only that, if the GVW of the bigger trailer combined with the GVW of the towing vehicle exceeds 3500kgs, then you need an artic license. That weight limit is easy to reach, the gross vehicle weight of a Land Cruiser must be over 2.5 tonnes, maybe more, that leaves very little left over for the trailer you're wanting to tow.
Yet somehow, a 16 year old can fill out a form and drive whatever they like so long as the towing vehicle is in the W class. And lets face it, there's some serious machinary in that category. It just doesn't make sense.
On a motorbike, there are cc limits until you are a certain age or have certain years experience. There should be a horse power limit on the W license in my opinion. And a weight limit on the towed item. If it takes an Artic driver a while to properly learn the dynamics of handling massive weight on a trailer, why do people think a 16 year old farmer instintively knows this and doesn't need anything?

that bit is wrong. If you have an eb license you are allowed to pull a trailer of upto 3500kg behind the vehicle so long as the vehicle is rated to pull the weight. There aren't a massive pile of vehicles that are rated for the full 3.5ton tho, most are only 2.7. discoverys, defenders etc being some of the 3.5t rated. In the case of them the eb would allow you up on 5.5ton as most are around the 2ton+3.5ton trailer weight

manjou · 26-02-2015 8:37am

Near one yesterday with round bale.Had bale on spikes and cut net to drop in place just as finished cutting net bale fell apart into barrier could easily have been caught under it.

farawaygrass · 26-02-2015 10:15am

Zr105 wrote: »

that bit is wrong. If you have an eb license you are allowed to pull a trailer of upto 3500kg behind the vehicle so long as the vehicle is rated to pull the weight. There aren't a massive pile of vehicles that are rated for the full 3.5ton tho, most are only 2.7. discoverys, defenders etc being some of the 3.5t rated. In the case of them the eb would allow you up on 5.5ton as most are around the 2ton+3.5ton trailer weight

Ya that's how I understand it too. There is so much confusion with this, there should be something published in papers or something to explain. Think you summed it up pretty well though. The pajaro is 3.5 tonne rated I think. Also even if vehicles were rated higher I think all the hitches you see on livestock trailers are only rated to 3.5 aswell

Chemical Byrne · 26-02-2015 10:20am

Brother in law almost met his end yesterday.

He built a shed near trees a few yrs ago and the gutters get blocked with leaves often enough meaning water goes down the wall and wets the bales. I had advised him to prune the overhanging trees and install a gutter hedgehog to keep the leaves out. Wasn't done. And my sister had warned him against walking on the fibre cement roof to clear it but he's the type of fella who doesn't listen and is inclined to do the exact opposite to what he' been advised :mad:

Anyway for some reason he though by taking off his shoes and walking across the roof in his socks would protect him. He stepped back onto a skylight and nearly went through but somehow didn't.

Not farm related but another time we were cutting the grass around the house with a ride on mower and the chute got blocked. (crappy mower). He stuck his whole arm down the chute to pull out the blockage with the blades still going full tilt. I was like WTF! His arm was literally mm away from belts and pulleys too. He had also disabled the automatic cut out under the seat that knocks it off when you dismount of or capsize. Same day the deck got all clogged and we had to lift it up to clear it. I wanted to prop it off a few sturdy blocks but he just grabbed a flimsy enough bit of a branch to prop it up and then stuck his whole head and neck in under it, I thought he was crazy.
Another time cleaning the yard he was warned against going near a failed retaining wall that was in danger of falling. I hear scraping and I look around and guess what, he was right in under the butt of the wall cleaning away. ( i have since knocked down the wall for safety's sake)
The other week he needed to widen the hole in the slurry tank to fit in an agitator. Rightly so, my sister demanded that he not go up there until I arrived to basically stand over him doing it to make sure he didn't kill himself at it.

We've all kinda reached the conclusion that he's a bit of a liability.

Chemical Byrne · 26-02-2015 10:25am

farawaygrass wrote: »

Ya that's how I understand it too. There is so much confusion with this, there should be something published in papers or something to explain. Think you summed it up pretty well though. The pajaro is 3.5 tonne rated I think. Also even if vehicles were rated higher I think all the hitches you see on livestock trailers are only rated to 3.5 aswell

There was a time when you would not be surprised to see fellas pulling slurry tankers and round balers behind jeeps. There was almost a level of pride a fella had in saying how such a small car/jeep was able to pull such a large tanker.
Pulling things isn't the problem -- stopping them is.

Thankfully I haven't seen that sort of stupidity in a good while now.

vincenzolorenzo · 26-02-2015 10:26am

Complete minefield alright and half the lads checking on the roads don't know the full details of the licensing rules. AFAIK with a BE license the max trailer weight you can tow is 3.5t but the towing vehicle can also be up to 3.5t.

The usual stuff you hear from lads about twin axle trailers all needing BE license etc is nonsense as far as I can see. It all comes down to trailer and vehicle weight and what the manufacturer ratings are.

Chemical Byrne · 26-02-2015 10:33am

99% of what you hear from "lads" is 2nd or 3rd hand semi or uninformed bullshyte that originated from some fella sitting on the corner stool at the pub who read something about something in the Journal while half pissed.

Reggie. · 26-02-2015 10:35am

Chemical Byrne wrote: »

Brother in law almost met his end yesterday.

He built a shed near trees a few yrs ago and the gutters get blocked with leaves often enough meaning water goes down the wall and wets the bales. I had advised him to prune the overhanging trees and install a gutter hedgehog to keep the leaves out. Wasn't done. And my sister had warned him against walking on the fibre cement roof to clear it but he's the type of fella who doesn't listen and is inclined to do the exact opposite to what he' been advised :mad:

Anyway for some reason he though by taking off his shoes and walking across the roof in his socks would protect him. He stepped back onto a skylight and nearly went through but somehow didn't.

Not farm related but another time we were cutting the grass around the house with a ride on mower and the chute got blocked. (crappy mower). He stuck his whole arm down the chute to pull out the blockage with the blades still going full tilt. I was like WTF! His arm was literally mm away from belts and pulleys too. He had also disabled the automatic cut out under the seat that knocks it off when you dismount of or capsize. Same day the deck got all clogged and we had to lift it up to clear it. I wanted to prop it off a few sturdy blocks but he just grabbed a flimsy enough bit of a branch to prop it up and then stuck his whole head and neck in under it, I thought he was crazy.
Another time cleaning the yard he was warned against going near a failed retaining wall that was in danger of falling. I hear scraping and I look around and guess what, he was right in under the butt of the wall cleaning away. ( i have since knocked down the wall for safety's sake)
The other week he needed to widen the hole in the slurry tank to fit in an agitator. Rightly so, my sister demanded that he not go up there until I arrived to basically stand over him doing it to make sure he didn't kill himself at it.

We've all kinda reached the conclusion that he's a bit of a liability.

Jaysus

And people wonder why there are deaths on farms

Chemical Byrne · 26-02-2015 10:42am

I know a lad who was delivering a load to a place and was to tip it into an underground reception pit with an auger to carry the stuff to silos. When opening the latches on the tailgate he made the mistake of not standing to the side and the tailgate popped open knocking him back into the pit with a sizable amount of the load falling in on top of him. Remember, there was an auger turning away at the bottom. I'm not sure what way the funeral went, certainly no wake anyway. Tupperware coffin.

Manual latches on tailgates should be done away with and we should use hydraulic ones that are either on their own spool or a simpler arrangement is to spur them off the tipping rams. It saves time too as no hopping up and down. Every weight bearing ram should be fitted with check valves.

Blackgrass · 26-02-2015 10:52am

Chemical Byrne wrote: »

I know a lad who was delivering a load to a place and was to tip it into an underground reception pit with an auger to carry the stuff to silos. When opening the latches on the tailgate he made the mistake of not standing to the side and the tailgate popped open knocking him back into the pit with a sizable amount of the load falling in on top of him. Remember, there was an auger turning away at the bottom. I'm not sure what way the funeral went, certainly no wake anyway. Tupperware coffin.

Manual latches on tailgates should be done away with and we should use hydraulic ones that are either on their own spool or a simpler arrangement is to spur them off the tipping rams. It saves time too as no hopping up and down. Every weight bearing ram should be fitted with check valves.

Why wasn't there a cage over the pit? Hope someone got taken bareback and some... It's not rocket science!

Hydraulic doors are handy but need a safety valve which is probably what your saying now that think of it:rolleyes:. Won't allow rear door to operate until lifted a few '' on body first. Locking mounts are needed to unlike ccertain trailers aka Bailey which tend to weep open as age :pac:

Reggie. · 26-02-2015 11:00am

Blackgrass wrote: »

Why wasn't there a cage over the pit? Hope someone got taken bareback and some... It's not rocket science!

Hydraulic doors are handy but need a safety valve which is probably what your saying now that think of it:rolleyes:. Won't allow rear door to operate until lifted a few '' on body first. Locking mounts are needed to unlike ccertain trailers aka Bailey which tend to weep open as age :pac:

Exactly...heavy mesh of some sort

Chemical Byrne · 26-02-2015 11:01am

I know of another incident my father told me of (good few years ago now) who was doing a bit of clearing or whatever and had a bulldozer in doing it. There was some problem with the starter on it and he used have to get out and cross the terminals on the starter to get it going.
All was OK until he left it in gear (or whatever) and with him standing on the track when it started he was thrown onto the ground and the track then went straight over him.

Another fella I knew lost part of his foot trying to kick a drawbar into the hitch. Very common.

Are any of you familiar with Ford 10 series tractors? The pickup hitch is lifted by these long inverted U shaped lift rods with a sliding pin attached to the lift arms. Anyway I heard of a one where a young fella was going along standing on the arms and to hold on he held onto those U shaped rods with his hands. For whatever reason, whoever was driving decided to lift up the arms. The sliding pins came up along the U bars and sheared all the lad's fingers clean off. Horrible. I think this dangerous arrangement might be part of the reason why the later 40 and TS series changed to having enclosed lift rods with a long mushroom topped bar sliding inside a tube.

Similar type of incident to what happened me with the krone mower. Luckily I escaped with a badly crushed thumb. Sliding linkages are deadly.
Sometimes I think what happened me was actually a good thing. No too serious but it woke me up to how dangerous a combination ignorance and machinery is. I'm very very wary now and extremely safety conscious working around the yard when I'm at home. Even down to things like tidying up and housekeeping.

Chemical Byrne · 26-02-2015 11:16am

I know of another close one that happened my brother. He was working with a neighbour mowing silage and some cover kept working loose on the mower and needed to be tightened down every now and then. FAULT 1, it should’ve been fixed. The tractor must have had a gammy ratched & pawl on the handbrake because it would occasionally “pop” off. FAULT 2. So my brother’s on top of the mower tightening the cover while on a slope and the handbrake “pops” and the whole lot begins moving downhill. Brother manages to jump off, run up alongside the tractor, jump in and stop it. A natural reaction to do that but thinking now, I wouldn’t do that. It’s not worth risking getting rolled over for if you slip trying to get on the step.

Another one is building loads of square bales on trailers. I think technically that would be classified as working at height. I’m not sure does agriculture have some exemption in this regard or is a blind eye turned to it by the HSA. Thinking about it, if work at height regs were enforced here it would essentially outlaw the use of small square bales.
A fella I worked with was also notorious for having bale trailers with floor boards that could collapse at any second. Lots of bruised and scraped legs that summer

Tea 1000 · 26-02-2015 12:24pm

Zr105 wrote: »

that bit is wrong. If you have an eb license you are allowed to pull a trailer of upto 3500kg behind the vehicle so long as the vehicle is rated to pull the weight. There aren't a massive pile of vehicles that are rated for the full 3.5ton tho, most are only 2.7. discoverys, defenders etc being some of the 3.5t rated. In the case of them the eb would allow you up on 5.5ton as most are around the 2ton+3.5ton trailer weight

Seems you're correct more or less. My information was coming from a friend who was told directly from the licensing office the restriction. Looks like the employee was incorrect! Here's the official speil:

What trailers does my category B licence cover?
You can tow a trailer with a

MAM no greater than 750kg, and/or
Where the MAM of the trailer exceeds 750kg but where the MAM of the vehicle and trailer does not exceed 3500kg.

As a general rule your category B licence would not allow you to tow a horsebox or a livestock trailer for bringing animals to the local mart.

What trailers does my category BE licence cover?
You can tow a trailer

In all cases where the MAM of the vehicle and trailer combination is greater than 3500kg but less than 7000kg.
In cases where the MAM of the trailer is greater than 750kg. However, note previous question where in certain cases a category B licence will allow you to tow a trailer over 750kg.

A car with a towing capacity of 2000kg can draw a trailer with a plated MAM of 3500kg provided the combination of the weight of the trailer and any load does not exceed the towing capacity of the car e.g. 2000kg.

Tokyo · 26-02-2015 12:42pm

Chemical Byrne wrote: »

Remember, there was an auger turning away at the bottom. I'm not sure what way the funeral went, certainly no wake anyway. Tupperware coffin.

Mod Note:

Guys, not a warning, just a heads-up. Please bear in mind that the farming community is quite close knit, and everybody knows everybody, or is related to somebody. A little bit of tact when discussing accidents goes a long way - nobody needs to read something like this about a friend or family member.

vincenzolorenzo · 26-02-2015 12:52pm

Tea 1000 wrote: »

Looks like the employee was incorrect!

I've come across this loads of times. The people meant to be running the show don't know the rules!

Zr105 · 27-02-2015 12:37am

Tea 1000 wrote: »

Seems you're correct more or less. My information was coming from a friend who was told directly from the licensing office the restriction. Looks like the employee was incorrect! Here's the official speil:

What trailers does my category B licence cover?
You can tow a trailer with a
MAM no greater than 750kg, and/or

Where the MAM of the trailer exceeds 750kg but where the MAM of the vehicle and trailer does not exceed 3500kg.

As a general rule your category B licence would not allow you to tow a horsebox or a livestock trailer for bringing animals to the local mart.

What trailers does my category BE licence cover?
You can tow a trailer
In all cases where the MAM of the vehicle and trailer combination is greater than 3500kg but less than 7000kg.

In cases where the MAM of the trailer is greater than 750kg. However, note previous question where in certain cases a category B licence will allow you to tow a trailer over 750kg.

A car with a towing capacity of 2000kg can draw a trailer with a plated MAM of 3500kg provided the combination of the weight of the trailer and any load does not exceed the towing capacity of the car e.g. 2000kg.

There's a whole pile of confusion over this because when all the stuff started about clamping down on be licenses one of the papers went and made a balls up job of reporting the weights etc and every one took it as gospel rather than actually looking up the facts and figures properly, which have been pretty much unchanged for a long time now.. Which is you can tow up to what the jeep is rated to pull once you have the eb licence and the trailer weight does not exceed 3.5ton

There's also a lot of confusion around tri axle trailers, a lot think you have to have an artic license for them but there doesn't seem to be anything in law to this regard atm.

BUT the thing is that you'd want to be filling a tri axle with feathers and helium to be under the weight classifications for jeeps. In reality if you filled a tri axle cattle trailer you will pretty much be over loading the axles, drawbar, hitch unit, nose weight on the ball hitch on the jeep, never mind the towing capacity.

vincenzolorenzo · 27-02-2015 7:16am

I think what happened was that guidance booklets or explanation notes gave examples, like if pulling a twin axle cattle trailer you will require an EB licence as chances are it will be over the weight limits for a B license. Lads then took this to mean once a trailer had 2 axles you required an EB.

davidk1394 · 28-02-2015 8:23pm

Chemical Byrne wrote: »

Jesus lexie. That is absolutely appalling. Your parents should be up for negligence or child abuse or something for permitting that sort of completely moronic recklessness to persist despite repeated incidents.

What in blue faced Jesus's name was A 2 YEAR OLD doing within 100 feet of an active farmyard not to mind a running tractor's fan belt?
Children should not be within an assess roar of a farmyard when work is taking place. FFS if got out anywhere that children were on building sites and going around hanging out of the cabs of excavators and dumpers or hanging around pipelines and deep excavations there would be war and heads would roll for it, and rightly so.

Don't get me started on 16 year old CHILDREN being legally allowed to drive all sorts of heavy machinery and 80km/hr Fastracs with 40' trailer with nothing other than a learner permit while to drive a small rigid truck one needs training and CPC etc etc not to even mention the training and certifications required to operate so much as a JCB digger on a proper construction site. No doubt this loophole is a relic of a bygone era when a Massey 35 was the largest piece of machinery likely to be encountered on any farm. But nothing will change in a hurry as to reform the system would be immensely unpopular and any politician who proposes such reform, no matter how necessary or well intentioned, would be committing political suicide, the weapon of choice being the ire of farmers and the IFA -untrained and impressionable 16 year olds are just too damn handy as cheap labour and might be ignorant of their rights.
(OT but on the point of construction you should see some of the outrageous proposals on this forum by farmers proposing to build sheds etc who suggest wacky things like welding structural steel at height out of the bucket of a loader.)

That is the problem with family farms. Familiarity breeds contempt and results in maiming and death on a grand scale.

Id say you were some craic when you were young alright

Farm accident stories...be careful folks!!

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