Close call! Lesson learned!

[Hardwoodsgreen]

I had a very close call this afternoon while dumping crush run gravel over my 6' kennel fence with the FEL of my TC33DA HST. I had a full bucket with the boom extended to it's highest position over the kennel fence when I ran the front left wheel off into about a 8-10 inch drop, normally you would not even notice the stepoff while walking. Suddenly without warning the right side of the tractor left the ground turning to the left at about a 45 degree angle and started rocking. It really felt like it was going to turn over. If it had it would have fell into the corner of my barn, probably pinning me between the tractor and the barn. It actually crossed my mind in a split second that I didn't want my wife to come home and find me like this! I am a firm beleaver in the roll bars and safety belt! Initially I tried to slowly back out with the HST pedal, but only made things worse. At the last second I grabbed my joy stick and quickly dumped the load of gravel. The tractor quickly returned to all 4 wheels and easily back out to level ground. It all happened so fast that it didn't scare me until it was over. I was also at home alone, doing something I thought was routine and safe when this just snuck up on me.
I have worked in EMS for 23 years including 15 years on a air rescue helicopter and have flown countless tractor accidents, including 2 in the last 2 weeks including a fellow working under his large HD rotory mower without a jack backup when the 3pt hitch bleed off, dropping the mower on him, unfortunately he was killed. Just yesterday I had a young man that was working on a hyraulic line that exploded and blowing oil all over him and egnited, burning 60% of his body.
This event has really given me insight to how fast and unexpected a tractor accident can occur!

Be Safe!!

 

[Tim_in_IA]

Glad to hear you are okay. Hope there weren't any doggies in the neigboring kennel area when the gravel had to fly down. Are you making a new kennel area? If you are, pictures would be great as I am in the process of designing this.

 

[BoneheadNW]

Good story. Nothing like an incident such as this to make you realize that it can happen to you too.

Stay safe,

Bonehead

 

[woodlot]

Glad your ok! This stuff is really starting to get to me. What would you do different next time? Do you think this was preventable?

 

[Hardwoodsgreen]

woodlot, Yes, this was preventable. I should have been more aware of the stepoff and never went there, espeacially with the bucket full of gravel at it's hightest position. I just didn't realize that it only took a small drop to make the tractor very unstable in this position. I also had no counter weight like a bush hog on the back of the tractor. When the FEL is at it's highest position, it really shifts the center of gravity, making the tractor very prone to turn over, espeacially if the bucket is loaded down. I think I may have just been a little to comfortable and gotten complacent. I know complacency is the mother to all accidents! I always keep the FEL to its lowest position when moving just to keep the COG low.

Be safe!!

Tim

 

[Hardwoodsgreen]

Hey Tim, Lucky enough all the dogs were out in the yard watching me! No, not building a new kennel, I was working on my existing kennels for my solid black german shepherds. I have a 4 month old, 60 lb puppy that has learned to dig under the fence, so I had put down welded fenceing around the edges and was covering it with crush run gravel.
I have 2 kennels that are adjacent to each other. They are each 24'X24'X6'. This gives them plenty of room to be active. They are also under a couple of Oak and Maple trees with honey suckle vines on some of the fencing, giving them plenty of shade in the summer, they also have insulated houses for the cold TN mountain winters. They have 3/4 inch gravel chips on the floor of the kennel.
I will post you a couple of pictures. The picture with the tractor was last week when I still had my finish mower attatched, yesterday I didn't and I was at another spot on the kennel. Let me know if I can help you with your kennels.

Tim

Picture 1

Picture 2

Picture 3

MikePA: Changed inline pics to links. Inline pics force everyone, including those who connect with modems, to download them.

 

[Junkman]

Sure would love to read what you have posted, but your oversized pictures make it too difficult to view the whole text without moving the text from left to right to read each sentance. I suggest that you use smaller pitures to make it easier for us old folk that have trouble reading a moving line. /forums/images/graemlins/grin.gif /forums/images/graemlins/grin.gif

 

[HuckBB62]

I'm trying to figure out the picture problem, they're only half the width of my screen. I can see his whole post.

 

[Alan L.]

On my resolution the pics are just the right size.

 

[shoppintractors]

On my monitor the first picture is oversized, throwing the formatting off. The second two shots show the entire picture without having to scroll.

Don