Killed by Brush hog

patrickg · Jul 4, 2001

South Central Oklahoma. A guy was killed near Stratford recently when his brush hog fell on him. No one is sure just why he hiked it up and was under it. He was in his late 70's and extremely experienced. Sometimes familiarity breeds contempt. Doing something wrong for years and not dying doesn't make it safe. Doing something wrong, just this one time, because otherwise it might be inconvenient, is still not safe. I didn't know the man but know some of his friends. He will be sorely missed. What a shame.... totally preventable, like walking across an infrequently traveled road without looking both ways. One day a quiet vehicle will come along at the wrong time.

Patrick

Bird · Jul 4, 2001

I guess some people just don't think about how heavy that thing is. Tough way to go; sure feel for his friends and family, too.

Bird

cowboydoc · Jul 5, 2001

I can surely understand how it can happen. I had to do some repairs to mine last weekend and had it hoisted up with the chain and loader. I suppose it could have fell too.

WVBill · Jul 24, 2001

Just this past weekend over in Clarke County Virginia an older man was teaching a 14 year old relative (nephew, I think) how to drive the tractor while he was bush hogging a field. The man was sitting on the fender of the tractor while the boy put the tractor in gear and let out the clutch. The tractor reared up and lurched forward and the man slipped off the fender and under the bush hog. To quote the news paper: "The man was declared dead at the scene. The police said the young boy was too hysterical to interview."

Sad, very sad.

dmccarty · Jul 25, 2001

What is so horrible about this accident is that the 14 year old is going to blame himself for not letting the clutch out smoothly. The uncle is the one at fault for the accident and he paid the ultimate price for a mistake but the family and that poor 14 year old kid have to live with it the rest of their lives. Tragic. Very tragic.... /w3tcompact/icons/frown.gif I hope they get the kid some help he is going to need it.

Later...
Dan McCarty

MChalkley · Jul 25, 2001

One word: HST. (Ok, so it's an acronym, not a word.) I keep talking about the safety advantages of an HST being the most important ones. It's no joke.

I remember my father using a similar method when teaching me to drive a tractor, but there wasn't a bush hog on the back at the time. I was probably 7 or 8. After the second or third jolt with him hanging on, Dad took us to a big level part of the pasture, put the tractor in first gear, and told me to practice, while he watched from a safe distance. I shudder now to think of it, though: an old tricycle wheel Case, no seat belt, no ROPS, no safety gear of any kind. It's a wonder any of us lived long enough to get any smarter.

MarkC

GlueGuy · Jul 25, 2001

I'll second that. First time I drove a tractor was when I was 12, on my brother-in-laws farm. Was a big Deere, with a hand actuated clutch. Had a turd-hearse loaded to the gills, and engaged the clutch too fast, and the front of the tractor went about 6' in the air before I could react. HST is a big, big, big safety factor.

The GlueGuy

dmccarty · Jul 25, 2001

MChalkley,

I looked back at the stuff I used to do when I first drove a tractor at 16 and really wonder how I did not get killed or hurt. I worked on a MF 135 hogging fields with 5 foot tall grass/brush pot holed with new and washed out ground hog holes. Great Fun to get that small front wheel into one of the washed out ground hog holes! No ROPS or seat belt on that old tractor. I can remember me and the boss standing up to try to see the holes before we found them with the front tires. Heck of a choice to make....

I dont EVER remember us doing any and I do mean ANY greasing or PM on those tractors. The boss used a MF 175 or thereabouts. One day his rear wheel fall off in the field while cutting. Gee I wonder how that happened? The summer job ended when his little bulldozer busted an oil line in the woods one day. The dummy drove that thing out instead of shutting down the engine. I never did understand that one. A year or so later the boss was cutting some trees by himself and the chain wacked him in the head and knocked him out. I heard he was a bloody mess when he woke up after a couple of hours and made it the neighbors who finally got him to the hospital.

The funny thing is that a year later I and a bunch of other students where helping one of our high school teachers bring in and stack the tobacco group. Talk about an UGLY and HORRIBLE job, I stacked 'baccy ONCE and I'll never do that again.... But anyway, we broke for lunch and a group of guys jumped on a tractor to ride to The Big House. They wanted me to ride the tractor but I walked. Just was not going to climb and ride that way for some reason. So maybe I learned something when I was working on the other farm after all......

What is scary is how ignorant my parents were about all of this stuff. They did not know what was going on anymore than I did. There is no way I would allow my kid to work in the conditions I did......

Later...
Dan McCarty