Brush hog accident(s)

[lilranch2001]

Anyone other than an idiot would think it cannot happen!

 

[alaarp]

Another thing about this. So person is sleeping in the weeds and brush comes by maybe 2-3 ft away on the pass before it eats you alive! How in the hell do you not wake up, jump up, and get the hell outta there?
This person had to be in an unconscious drunken stupor, in a drug comma, or already dead. INMHO

I vote for already dead. Fits the description. Isn't there some toxicology report they can do to determine if she was dead before the mower struck?

 

[Timmy1957]

I ALWAYS use a back Gaurd. A local man hit some bob wire and spend the rest of his life in a wheelchair

 

[scootr]

Yikes! That is extreme misfortune.

 

[Al Kramer]

Unsure what a poach is?

Poachers.

 

[Al Kramer]

My rubber skirts started chunking out and I ignored it for a time until I mowed over a small pile of DG with pebbles in it. After being "shotgunned" to the back of my head and neck, I fabricated bolt on chain guards out of angle iron and 5/16" chain.
Put that welder to work!

How do chains keep things from flying around? I’ve read about rocks shooting thru the mower decks, so, how would chains stop a rock? Or anything?

 

[lilranch2001]

A chain just slows the momentum of the object being tossed down, maybe you won’t die because you got hit by something…..

But you may wish to have died if it hit you hard enough!

 

[Al Kramer]

Several people have told about running over deer.

I'd be careful running with the loader down low when bushhogging. I've tried that trick in thick weeds and found a stump that bent me WAY over the steering wheel when standing on an open station tractor to see better. I don't want to hit stumps or whatever but I'd much rather have a repair bill than run myself over with the mower after being thrown from the tractor. Running with the bucket low-ish and tilted up is a better solution than blade straight and level.

As for the original post, it's really easy to hit things you don't see in heavy weeds and next to impossible to scout every square inch by foot beforehand. The use of the term "lawnmower" confuses people, especially since the article showed the nicely manicured lawns of the park but not the tall weeds mentioned in the text of the article. The "lawnmower" was likely a farm tractor. I commonly mow dense weeds 3-4 feet tall and sometimes brush higher than the tractor. My tractors could easily run over someone and I'd never notice the difference between that or a rock, stump, or other commonly ignored obstruction while mowing. Plus, some mowers are wider than the tractor itself. Picture the big batwing mowers used on highways. It's a tragedy but likely only avoidable by the victim herself. I'd expect most people to be awakened well before being run over unless they were under the influence or, possibly, they were sleeping where the first pass was taking place and woke in a daze.

“Running with the bucket low-ish and tilted up is a better solution than blade straight and level.” Why is that way better? Seems like in either case you could get tossed off the tractor. I’ve stood up now and then but I’ll think twice about it.

 

[masseyrider]

just mowed the back of the property, about 3 acres +-.
My hammer fell out of the tool box.
The greedy Bush-Hog gobbled it up and flung it a good 100+- feet across the field.
I've had a hammer there for countless years on numerous tractors.
First time this happened.

 

[lilranch2001]

Rut roe….. TBN has a way about items in a field…..

Think pallets!