walker450
Platinum Member
About 30 minutes before dark last night my wife's great-uncle Troy was involved in an accident. He is 76 years old and was with two of his best friends who have all farmed together for decades. Troy and Billy went to the field as Jack was making the last few rounds planting corn with a 12-row (30') planter. They helped him check each seed box and re-distribute the seed to ensure one row unit wouldn't run out before the other when the seed started getting low. They noticed a leak on one of the starter fertilizer lines and Jack said it can wait until later he only had a few acres left. All three started to walk away from the planter and Jack went to the tractor. Billy suddenly realized he might have a fitting available so went back to the row unit (in front of the planter) and him and Troy knelt down to see what size fitting. That's when they heard the tractor throttle up and start coming for them, planter already in the ground and lined up on the next long row. They were tumbled in front of the planter for what seemed like forever until it finally went right over the top of them. The driver went all the way to the other end and turned around and then seen something in the field, which he quickly found out was his two friends, laying in the dirt nearly on top of one-another.
Jack assumed everyone was walking away from the equipment and they knew he was going to start planting corn again. None of them have perfect hearing. Jack (driver) has neck problems and can't turn his head very far to the left. He said when he got in the tractor he made a quick glance to his right and started going, but his friends were on the left side knelt down so he didn't see them.
Both were medi-flighted in separate helicopters to the closest trauma unit. Troy will likely loses part of his ear and has many cuts on his body, mostly to his face. He also has 3-4 broke ribs in the back on one side, and 3-4 broke ribs in the front on the other side. His legs are also beat up very badly but no broken bones there. Billy is also expected to recover but I don't know details of his injuries, I was just told he was going to make it and that he had started talking.
Luckily, they did not have row-cleaners installed since they were planting into a clean field, or this most certainly would have been a double fatality. Also, there was no down-pressure on the row-units which would have allowed them to lift up slightly when running up and over them. I don't know if they were near the wheels or not. On a 12-row machine there are 6 wheels if I remember correctly... I don't know what would be worse, being ran over by row-units and the wheels, or just the row-units.
For you that may not know what a corn planter looks like, here is a link to a similar rig: Planting Corn April 29 2012 - YouTube
I'm still astonished that they even survived. I've spend many hours working on planters, operating them, filling them up with seed and fertilizer, etc. This is really amazing that they are still going to be around to tell this story.
We need some prayers down in Oklahoma for some good people that just made a small mistake that could have turned out to be more of a tragedy. Please keep negative comments out of here, we all know this could have prevented, it doesn't have to be talked about rudely to make that point.
Jack assumed everyone was walking away from the equipment and they knew he was going to start planting corn again. None of them have perfect hearing. Jack (driver) has neck problems and can't turn his head very far to the left. He said when he got in the tractor he made a quick glance to his right and started going, but his friends were on the left side knelt down so he didn't see them.
Both were medi-flighted in separate helicopters to the closest trauma unit. Troy will likely loses part of his ear and has many cuts on his body, mostly to his face. He also has 3-4 broke ribs in the back on one side, and 3-4 broke ribs in the front on the other side. His legs are also beat up very badly but no broken bones there. Billy is also expected to recover but I don't know details of his injuries, I was just told he was going to make it and that he had started talking.
Luckily, they did not have row-cleaners installed since they were planting into a clean field, or this most certainly would have been a double fatality. Also, there was no down-pressure on the row-units which would have allowed them to lift up slightly when running up and over them. I don't know if they were near the wheels or not. On a 12-row machine there are 6 wheels if I remember correctly... I don't know what would be worse, being ran over by row-units and the wheels, or just the row-units.
For you that may not know what a corn planter looks like, here is a link to a similar rig: Planting Corn April 29 2012 - YouTube
I'm still astonished that they even survived. I've spend many hours working on planters, operating them, filling them up with seed and fertilizer, etc. This is really amazing that they are still going to be around to tell this story.
We need some prayers down in Oklahoma for some good people that just made a small mistake that could have turned out to be more of a tragedy. Please keep negative comments out of here, we all know this could have prevented, it doesn't have to be talked about rudely to make that point.
