11 Year Old Close Call

[MossRoad]

Read in the paper Friday that my wife's 11 year old cousin was run over by a tractor and broke her pelvis. Kid will be O.K. after 6 weeks on crutches.

13 year old brother and 11 year old sister were returning from field after spreading manure. They were arguing over who should be driving the tractor ( as if two children should be on a tractor to begin with! ). The girl jumps off the tractor and falls under the rear tire, breaking her pelvis. Could have been a lot worse!

 

[RoyJackson]

Read in the paper Friday that my wife's 11 year old cousin was run over by a tractor and broke her pelvis. Kid will be O.K. after 6 weeks on crutches.

13 year old brother and 11 year old sister were returning from field after spreading manure. They were arguing over who should be driving the tractor ( as if two children should be on a tractor to begin with! ). The girl jumps off the tractor and falls under the rear tire, breaking her pelvis. Could have been a lot worse!

WOW!!!
I'm glad that's all that happened and she'll be OK (in a couple months). I do hope you (better yet, your wife) does bring up that point about kids operating equipment. It sounds like they were unsupervised.

One reason I bring this up is there was a 14 year old boy killed when he fell into a hay rake. This was in PA.
I didn't post it as it wasn't tractor related. The boy was Amish and the rig was horse drawn.

 

[Bird]

I do hope you (better yet, your wife) does bring up that point about kids operating equipment.

I can understand that thought, but with the injuries to the girl and the boy undoubtedly feeling that he was at least partially responsible for it, I'd bet neither of them will forget it and both will be much more careful in the future without any further action.

Of course, I'm sure lots of people feel that those two were too young to be operating the equipment, but for those of us who grew up in the country, it's just not unusual for farm kids to start operating the equipment at very young ages.

 

[JerryG]

I can understand that thought, but with the injuries to the girl and the boy undoubtedly feeling that he was at least partially responsible for it, I'd bet neither of them will forget it and both will be much more careful in the future without any further action.

Of course, I'm sure lots of people feel that those two were too young to be operating the equipment, but for those of us who grew up in the country, it's just not unusual for farm kids to start operating the equipment at very young ages.

You sure have that right, Bird. It was the norm to operate equipment at that age rather than not.

 

[patrick_g]

I loaded watermelons into a wagon pulled behind a tractor slowly through the field. A couple of cousins and I did it for a summer job when I was 9th-10th grade. One of the larger operations we loaded at the tractor pulling the wagon was operated by the owner's son. He was about 9-10 years old. We weren't all that much older. There often was no adult anywhere in sight.

The only accidents we ever had was tossing 40lb melons to the guy closer to the wagon to toss to the guy in the wagon in a light rain. Watermelons are slippery when wet.

The youngster driving the tractor certainly knew how and never made a detectable mistake. I didn't know this family so I can't say at what age he learned to drive a tractor or how much mentoring he got but he made the 180 turns from row to row like a pro, right on target, no muss no fuss and brought the wagon right up close to the back of the 18 wheeler's trailer for transferring the produce to the big rig.

The age of the two on the tractor contributed to the problem in the described mishap but there should NEVER be two people on a tractor, regardless of the ages. Count the seat belts. Never carry more people than there are seat belts.

Pat

 

[Bird]

And you don't even have to be operating a tractor to have that kind of accident. When I was about 12 years (give or take a year), I helped a friend and his brother hauling corn stalks to a barn. They had the corn stalks bundled in "shocks" in the field, which was very unusual for Oklahoma, but we were loading them onto a wagon pulled by a single mule. They were bulky, but light weight so we piled them high. Enroute to the barn, I was driving the mule and the two brothers got to wrestling (playing king of the mountain) on top of the load. My buddy threw his brother off and the wagon ran over the boy's ankle. We had quite a time trying to lift him and load him onto the wagon to take him to the house with him crying, screaming in pain, etc. But as it turned out, the ankle was only sprained and badly bruised; not broken.

 

[patrick_g]

Bird, My paternal grand mother used to have a saying that relates to these accidents involving multiple children.

A boy can be a man. Two boys are half a man and three or more boys is no man at all.

Pat

 

[gotcha]

Bird, My paternal grand mother used to have a saying that relates to these accidents involving multiple children.

A boy can be a man. Two boys are half a man and three or more boys is no man at all.

Pat

You got that one right, but I was taught "One boy all boy, Two boys, half a boy and Three boys, no boy at all" . Guess the 2 sayings mean the same thing
The Gotcha Man

 

[HC-80]

I, too, worked in the hayfields when the tractor operator was only 9 or 10. I do not remember any accidents, and he was very cautious when heading onto the road.

I have instructed my kids in how to operate the equipment on the farm, but I supervise them closely until they prove they know what they are doing. However, I do not allow them around any PTO driven equipment. Our manure spreader is ground driven, and they do fine with it and the 2N.

My kids are 14, 12 and 10. The older will be out on the road alone in a couple years, and I believe the training on the farm will make him more responsible on the road later. Of course the youngest only uses the tractor under close supervision and none of them while I am not around close at hand regardless.

I share the "horror stories" with them and stress safety, but they have to learn, and I prefer they learn from me.

If I deny them the opportunity to operate the tractor, who's to say that they might not grab the keys and try it out while I'm not home one day? Kinda like I did with dad's .22?

 

[Grrrr]

I have been operating tractor since I was 13. But I have been around machines all my life. Now I am able to do pretty much any farm tractor task.

By law in the UK, you have to be 13 to drive a tractor anywhere. But that means any tractor, of any HP.

You can get a licence to drive a tractor on the road here at 16.

I must admit we sometimes break the 1 tractor, 1 rider rule. My grandad, who has been around tractors for a looooong time often jumps on the drawbar when soemone else is driving. The farmer next door to us who is in his 70's does the same. His son, who farms with him jumps up on the fender when he is showing me how to do something or we are working somewhere together.

On one of his tractors, the PTO doesn't fully stop and always turns round slowly. Our next door neighbour stands on that tractors drawbar all the time when they go to feed the cattle. I think that is a bit dangerous.