Man killed in tractor accident

[blackie65]

I knew one old guy who used to pass his chain under the rear of the tractor and hook it to the framework of his tractor near the front end. He pulled going forward. He said it kept the tractor from flipping.

Sounds like a pretty good idea for those questionable situations

[Rickstir]

Not an official poll by any means, but this seems to be the most common accident listed on these pages. I just don't see how to educate people on a mass scale about this. One week you buy some property, buy a tractor which you have never used before, and you have set yourself up for tragedy. Sad.

[NorTracNY]

Rickstir,
You're absolutely correct. If you survive long enough though, you'll find this site which will hopefully keep you from killing yourself in the future. I have pulled out many trees, but always with hooking the chain at the lowest point on the hitch. I also find that the creeper gear works best on pulling them out. I would assume that I could react at that speed.

Mark

[beppington]

The National Ag Safety Database has an article with diagram showing a tree stump being pulled by a tractor.

Do you have a link to that? I'd rather learn that way than the hard way.

[Jay4200]

This kind of thing is a direct result of not being able to buy dynamite at Agway anymore. Effin' democrats.

JayC

[Gary Fowler]

Go watch the tractor pulls, they hitch to the drawbar which is pinned in fromt of the rear axles in most instances. When pulling the front wheels will come up but only to a point to where the drawbar starts acting like a fulcrum to lift the rear tires thus diminishing traction so the front falls again then rises back as traction is increased. As long as you hook directly to the drawbar and not to the lift arms and you are on level ground, the flip is nullified.

[andersonst]

Not an official poll by any means, but this seems to be the most common accident listed on these pages. I just don't see how to educate people on a mass scale about this. One week you buy some property, buy a tractor which you have never used before, and you have set yourself up for tragedy. Sad.

I agree this is truely sad, my thoughts are with the family.

That said, I sorta fall into the catagory of buy some property, buy a tractor. I have used CUT's before, both my brother and sister have JD's on their properties that I have used, but this is the first one I have owned.
I bought a Bobcat CT335HST. I have 23 acres of mostly wooded, rather unlevel property that trees and stumps have become my enemy. I always use the FEL to get the stumps out, have never used the drawbar or 3PT for that. When I drop the tree, I leave about a 3-4 foot high stump that I can "get ahold of". Usually it takes the better part of an afternoon and a rather large hole that needs to be filled in, but on unlevel ground getting the tires off the ground is a pretty easy thing to do, it's amazing what those hydraulics will lift. There are times when the stump just doesn't want to give in and thats when my F350 is put to work to pull it out. They can be a real pain in the butt, but taking your time and thinking things through is a far better outcome then the alternative.
These machines are great tools and certainly make our lives easier but they can also be quite dangerous, if the task appears to be to big, find another tool.

Steve

[jmc]

Keeping the front end down is not as simple as hooking the load below the axle. While that technique keeps the tractor from rotating up about the axle, the new pivot point then becomes the rear tires' contact point with the ground. In effect, the tires try to "walk" out from under the tractor. Another TBN poster made this point years ago. I'm just passing it on here because it seems to make sense.

[flusher]

I use quick links as a safety when I pull stumps, and if it doesn't work out ... i burn them ...

gotta keep safe

Good idea.
Another idea--don't attempt to pull a stump until you know something about the roots. That means doing some work with a spade and digging bar to uncover the horizontal roots near the surface and then cutting them (safely) with ax, sawzall--not with a chain saw (don't want to dig that cutting bar into the ground and cause another type of accident that gets a fair number of posts in this forum). Then carefully pull the stump using the drawbar that's attached under the rear axle. It takes more time, but it's better than taking that E-ticket ride on a backflipping tractor.

[Reg]

I am GUESSING that some folk want to add some LIFT to their HORIZONTAL pull to get the stump out ?
I have thought about doing something unusual in this direction, e.g. hook to the top of the ROPS and pull backwards using ONLY 2WD - as I said, only THOUGHT about it as a way to get some lift, it would have other problems.
The hoe works well enough, but there is something attractive about PULLING 'em out.
When I get to using the stump grinder... things will probably get dull, though safer.

We can only speculate, study accident reports if/when thye become available and consciously avoid similar steps that might lead to similar outcomes.

However it happened it is tragic