Man killed trying to separate PTO shaft with tractor

[Kyle_in_Tex]

IMO, the tractor wheelied over. Front end came over and flipped, like the article stated.

 

[Fuddy1952]

I don't claim to be a farmer although around tractors all my life. I had my share of close calls but was lucky.
My JD cuts off if PTO is on and I get out of seat. There's no reason imho to be near a running PTO. Neighbor's Dad got his shirt caught in one. He survived luckily since shirt ripped off of him.

 

[Shaneard]

I don't claim to be a farmer although around tractors all my life. I had my share of close calls but was lucky.
My JD cuts off if PTO is on and I get out of seat. There's no reason imho to be near a running PTO. Neighbor's Dad got his shirt caught in one. He survived luckily since shirt ripped off of him.

I twisted my best friend around a auger pto shaft once digging fence post holes, I heard his death scream and immediately shut the tractor off. He had a flannel shirt on and it got hung on the pto shaft. I had to cut his shirt off him to get him loose. One more second and it would have been much worse. I learned a valuable lesson that day.

 

[cqaigy2]

and if he had chained it to the drawbar under the tractors chassis, there is no way for the tractor to flip over backwards.

Not unless he ran out of enough torque to tip the tractor up. You dropped the center, but unless you unhook your tractor, it can still come up.

 

[Diggin It]

IMO, the tractor wheelied over. Front end came over and flipped, like the article stated.

Where does it say that?

 

[ruffdog]

Most of the time we are lucky when we do our work in a possibly risky fashion. It is sad that this man was not lucky on his final day.

 

[CobyRupert]

I twisted my best friend around a auger pto shaft once digging fence post holes, I heard his death scream and immediately shut the tractor off. He had a flannel shirt on and it got hung on the pto shaft. I had to cut his shirt off him to get him loose. One more second and it would have been much worse. I learned a valuable lesson that day.

Holy cow!


That could go awful in a second.

So sorry for the family. With more details, the story could be a lesson for others. Like others have said, even them mentioning a PTO shaft is a lot more detail than most stories.

How did it happen?: Are there really any tractors that have a pto connection above the axle? It seems very, very unlikely the pto shaft was connected to the tractor's pto spline. You'd break castings and bearing if you used this connection as a pulling point, and it's not high enough to flip the tractor backwards even if you did; and no way would turning PTO on flip a tractor sideways like a rotisserie.
It's seems very likely he chained the PTO shaft to the tractor (like the story says) at a point above the rear axles that causes the tractor to rotate backwards.

The lesson is: Don't do that!

Many people don't know not to do that. Example, India has a billion people, and if you've ever watched tractor videos from there, not 1 in a billion knows not to do that!

 

[Diggin It]

I'd never been on a tractor of any size before I got mine six months ago, but I knew from mowers and other things that you would want to connect as low to the center of gravity as possible if you were going to try to pull and keep the front end down. But for all we know, he may have been connected low, but was on a slope, or in soft ground and some motion caused him to go sideways.

 

[TractorGuy]

Always sad to hear of an accidental death.

I had to pull a stuck shaft apart once but I didn't have it connected to the pto shaft of the tractor. I think I ran a bolt and chain through both ujoints. Been a long time ago.

 

[RandyT]

and if he had chained it to the drawbar under the tractors chassis, there is no way for the tractor to flip over backwards.

Being an older Oliver tractor I suspect it was connected to the drawbar, and yes the older tractors had light front ends and would pull the front end off the ground and tip over backwards. Many a farmer was killed when plowing and the moldboard would catch a stump or something, and over they would go.