Always !!! lower your 3PT attachment when leaving the tractor!

[IslandTractor]

OK, I am pretty safety conscious and know perfectly well that it is important to lower any three point attachment to the ground before shutting down and walking away from a tractor. I adhere to this principle mostly because I am afraid that the kids in my neighborhood who occasionally jump on the tractor to play with big boy toys might hit the control lever or FEL controller. However, I wasn't so smart this weekend when I had a box blade mounted and I lowered it only to about three inches from the ground as I kept driving off forgetting to raise it again and got tired of tearing up the yard. So, I walked away to grease the FEL (which was on the ground). After greasing the FEL I remembered the grease nipples at the back of my tractor (Kioti DK40se) so decided to give it a pump or two. The box blade was obstructing my access so I had to lean around to get the grease gun on the nipple. Guess what, Kioti has a very conveniently mounted extra 3PT controller at the back of the tractor, very handy when mounting implements. Guess what happens next...I nudge the controller accidentally with the grease gun and plant a box blade shank directly on to my foot (I had not noticed where I had put my foot when leaning around the rear wheel to aim at the grease nipple). Ouch. Worse really than ouch. Ouch squared at least. I was wearing steel toed work boots but the shank pinned my foot about and inch or two behind the steel plate. 700lbs of box blade resting on the tip of the shank on my foot. Engine off. No way to raise the box blade. Pinned to the ground. The shank did not penetrate the boot (thick leather) but I was having no trouble imagining what a crucifixion must feel like. I usually work alone but this time my wife was within earshot and ran into the barn to get a "long metal pipe" at my rather urgent request. She returned with a pipe clamp and I was able to insert it under the box blade side and then get her to lever the dam thing off my foot. Nasty bruise but otherwise I escaped serious injury. Could have been a lot worse. Had I been alone, I probably would have been able to reach the toolbox on the rear of the tractor and use a pair of pliers to excavate the dirt under my foot out to escape but that would have taken quite a while and the thought did not even occur to me at the time. Extreme pain does not usually bring forth our best Apollo 13 self rescue strategies.

So, I broke a cardinal safety rule and paid for it. Tractor bits are heavy and dangerous even with the engine off. We often debate these types of safety rules (ROPS, draw bar etc) but it has been a while since anyone talked about a 3PT accident so I figured I'd post my experience. ALWAYS !!!! lower three point implements to the ground when shutting down the tractor. Simple rule. I had not intended to go anywhere near the box blade when I dismounted. It was only after completing my intended task of greasing the FEL that it occurred to me to hit a few more grease nipples. Never rethought the issue of where the boxblade was etc. Avoidable accident. Lucky outcome. Swollen painful foot.

 

[dave1949]

Ouch! Hurts to read about it even. Glad you are not seriously injured, although I imagine it will be stiff tomorrow morning. Watch that you don't have what they call a "green twig" fracture in a bone. Thanks for the safety reminder.

 

[newbury]

I would have cursed my stupidity greatly for doing something like that. I appreciate your graphic description and hopefully it will ensure I don't do something stupid.

I have been known to put stuff in a raised FEL.

Thanks.

 

[texasjohn]

glad it got resolved with no more damage than did occur....one reason I always carry a cell phone with me...and, agreed, good idea to always lower hydraulic equipment...I do it often, but not ALWAYS. Will try to do better. thanks.

 

[arrow]

Glad you escaped with minor injury Island. Thanks for bringing it up as someone had to eat the first poisonous mushroom.

 

[murphy1244]

So glad your allright. Something else i've learned. If using the rear 3 point controler to lower a implement to the ground always push your main 3 point control down be fore starting or it will come up very fast to the position chosen.

 

[300UGUY]

Another good reason for wearing good work boots. My steeltoe boots have saved me feets a few times. I have left the 3 point up, and the loader. Bad idea.

 

[boggen]

just plain OUCH!

 

[Shutesbury]

Glad you're okay.

I bought a new comfortable pair of steel-toed boots, and wear them faithfully, after a very similar event last year. I was reattaching the backhoe to my BX24 after finishing up with the York rake at my sister's. She and hubby were standing nearby, I had wood blocks under the down riggers to protect their driveway, and it was the end of a long day. Three distractions I don't normally have... and a clue to be more careful.

The top pins were not aligning right, and I twitched a lever a bit too much, and the lower pins lifted out then dropped out of the frame dogs. Backhoe dropped on my instep. Yell. Self-assess, touch nothing for a second to prevent compounding the error... decline their offer to move ?which lever?... "No, just stay back a moment. I'll do it." Deliberate thought process engaged to raise the weight off safely.

Walked a bit, nothing broken. Swollen badly by the time I got home, and stayed swollen then bruised for quite awhile. Lessons learned.

Paul

 

[94BULLITT]

Glad your Okay.

push your main 3 point control down be fore starting or it will come up very fast to the position chosen.

I always afraid someone will be standing there and it will hurt them when it comes up so I leave it down.

 

[JoeBuyer]

Very glad you were not permanently injured. I used to drop the FEL on my TLB and never thought about the backhoe until I found a nephew playing around on the backhoe. So now I drop the boom as well on the TLB.

 

[greasemonkeyok]

There are lots of small bones in your foot that are easy to break. If the pain persists, you might need to see a Dr.

Had a friend that walked on a broken foot for a month before getting it x-rayed.:duh:

 

[300UGUY]

I bought a old Kewaunee transport disk at a auction. It was in transport position, wheels down. I trailered it home about 75 miles over Michigan backroads. After I got it home, I started to grease it, the old thing had about a million zerks. It was still on the trailer, and I climbed into it to grease the zerks there. After 3 tubes of grease, I was standing inside the disk, when it suddenly went down. The only thing holding the thing in transport position was rust. A little grease fixed that!! As it dropped, one of the 20 in blades hit the toe of my boot, glanced off the steel toe insert, and cut into the oak deck about a inch. It cut right thru the edge of the sole, ripped off a chunk of leather. I could see my white sock!! I wiggled my toe, it wiggled back. No injury, but I went right out and bought a new pair of steel to Redwings the next day!! If I'd had my gym shoes on, I'd lost a toe or worse.

 

[Eyeshade]

It can be embarrassing to admit to the world when one makes a mistake but I appreciate you sharing. You might have prevented one of us from making the same mistake and being seriously injured. Thanks for the safety warning.

 

[joshuabardwell]

If I'd had my gym shoes on, I'd lost a toe or worse.

I wear Wellington boots around the place because I am in and out of the house and I don't like tracking dirt in. The Wellingtons can be slipped on and off easily. Imagine my delight when I found they come in steel toe variety.

 

[Danmanx]

As a health and safety issue I will go a little further and say that ''your tractor can kill you'' - not the more common rollovers etc but the shortcuts some people take and this is real. Imagine you get wire caught in your slasher, you raise the slasher to disentangle and what!!! Well if you use a pipe or something to hold the slasher up and the hydraulics have a slow leak you may or may not hear the click-click as the weight increases on the pipe; what happens when the pipe explosively gives way from the ground? Unfortunately in my occupation I have seen the result. I also take a mobile phone when working on my property but finding it in my dead hand when I am trapped under my collapsed slasher would not comfort me. Speaking to other property-owners; apparently such shortcuts are commonplace and where this incident occurred, I can state that the sign on the front gate said ''Workplace, Health & Safety Start Here''. I learned a lot from that particular incident and I hope others have as well ..... and yes I have injured myself from some stupid actions of my own so I am not immune. Glad to hear the foot is OK.

 

[k0ua]

Island, glad you are OK. It could have been a lot worse. Here is an interesting corollary to your experience. In the last day of usage of my old Kubota L3400, before getting our Kioti, the wife and I were out using it to move stones. I had loaded a nice huge flat stone to set on our wall. This stone was at the absolute limits of the Kubota's ability to lift it. To compound the problem the tractor was on a slight slope, leaning in the direction of the foot step. I had picked up the stone and had it only a few inches above the ground, and shut down the tractor to go help the wife shift some other stones around to make room for our newly dug out prize to sit. By habit I always lower the FEL and 3pt ballast when getting off the tractor. However this time I though I would leave the FEL with the huge stone on the forks up the few inches because it was such a struggle to get it to lift up in the first place. Of course I did lower the ballast, as I always do. Mistake number 1. I am a big ole boy, some would even call me fat.. When I got off using the foot step, as I stepped down I felt the tractor start to roll over towards me. OOPS.. I hollered for the wife to come help as I held the tractor from continuing the roll by pushing back on the FEL upright post. I had the tractor balanced from rolling on over, by pushing back with about 100 lbs of force. Apparently when I dropped the ballast and got my weight off of the seat, with the slight downhill sideways tilt, it was enough to raise the uphill rear tire off of the ground about a foot. The wife lowered the FEL control and the forks and rock hit the ground and of course then the rear tire hit the ground also.. Now whether the tractor would have continued to roll all the way over, or would the lower edge of the stone have hit the ground and stopped the roll I don't know and did not want to find out. If I had dropped the FEL and the load, of course there would not have been a problem, and if I had left the 3pt up with the 750 lbs of ballast on it, there would not have been a problem. But if you are going to drop the ballast to the ground, then you had better drop the FEL to the ground also.

James K0UA

 

[arrow]

Another good reason for wearing good work boots. My steeltoe boots have saved me feets a few times. I have left the 3 point up, and the loader. Bad idea.

I was once wearing these (steel toe) boots while corralling a horse. The horse reared up, hoof just missed my head on the way down and landed right on my toe. Now you think all would be well as I was wearing a steel toe. Nope. The horse bent the steel part right into my toe. That was a memorable and exhilarating day. Spare no expense when getting these. The cheap ones can just fold as I found out.

 

[IslandTractor]

I was once wearing these (steel toe) boots while corralling a horse. The horse reared up, hoof just missed my head on the way down and landed right on my toe. Now you think all would be well as I was wearing a steel toe. Nope. The horse bent the steel part right into my toe. That was a memorable and exhilarating day. Spare no expense when getting these. The cheap ones can just fold as I found out.

Yes, i have heard of similar injuries where the steel toe collapsed and damaged the mid foot. Still, i put those relatively rare events into the same category as potentially being trapped by a car seat belt. The odds are overwhelming in favor of using the safety device even if it can hypothetically sometimes hurt you.

I was wearing my steel toed boots and i will do so more knowingly from now on. I had developed a bad habit of only changing from my regulation summer boat shoes when I had "real" work to do and would often jump on the tractor without the safety boots to do "minor" tasks. I was lucky i had been doing real work earlier because I could easily have been wearing plain casual shoes to do a minor task like grease the FEL. Maybe i should get some steel toed boat loafers!

I don't know if expensive steel toed boots provide more protection than OSHA certified cheap versions. I have two pair and both are cheap with famous brand names not famous boot maker labels. I suspect that when you pay more you get a better fit and longer lasting or waterproof boot but I'd be a bit surprised if the toe protection itself was much different. At least I would like to believe that OSHA standards mean something.

 

[brin]

Island....thanks for the reminder... It is amazing just how fast accidents happen...one second we are fine and the next we make one miscalculation or get distracted and disaster strikes...just that darn fast...we all need to pay close attention....There are old Tractor Drivers and there are Bold Tractor Drivers but there are No Old , Bold Tractor Drivers....Glad you came out fine...and thanks for sharing...got my attention.