PHD grabbed my Father-in-Law yesterday

[AlanB]

Grizzman, I sincerly hope your FIL is doing well, there is nothing truly "good" in this story or that it happened, but maybe something "good" came out of the sharing of it and I wanted to share one with you.

My wife runs a small landscape business, we run a PHD constantly. We are constantly in other places where we do not know the conditions, and we change shear bolts very regularly. We leave a couple of the gaurds off to gain easy access to the shear bolt.

Over the past week or so I had read this thread to my wife, and stressed again the seriousness of the PHD, and how fast something can happen.

Last Friday they were Landscaping the New church, putting in Trees and using the PHD to put in the holes. Many church members were out there too help. As my wife was positioning to dig the next hole, the bit was wandering and not quite hitting the "mark" that she wanted. One of the older gentlemen of the church wanted to hold the Auger to get it lined up then have her engage it while he guided it down. She steadfastly refused for anyone to be anywhere near that auger while it was spinning. The guy was apparently a little less then happy with her, but soon came to the realization that no holes would get dug with anyone within 5' or so of that auger.

I sincerly believe that the reminder of safety that you shared here, and her and I talking about it, gave her an extra degree of respect and assuredness for what is certainly one of the more dangerous tools that we use regularly, and I believe stiffened her up when the gentleman was trying to back her down.

Thanks for sharing a difficult story, and come visit us sometime with your FIL if you are anywhere around Clarksville, TN.

 

[Garrabo]

well stated Beenthere..

 

[VistanTN]

After reading all of this, I add my thankfullness that everyone will recover. As for the rest of the comments -- it can be youth and inexperience (the "I'm invincible" mentality); it can be age and experience (the "I've done this many times before" mentality); it can be older machinery with lack of guards (or newer with the guards removed; but in the end, this tale has one ver BIG message -- you don't expect the unexpected. Every last one of us has stumbled sometime getting off a tractor, many while a PTO was still running. We didn't plan it, we didn't expect it, but if that stumble had gotten us too close, we'd be the subject of the tale. Safety is about a margin, and every time you cut off some of the margin (by design or not) you get closer to "unsafe." It is just a reminder to all of us that maintaining the margin does matter -- not always, not every time, but it only takes one.

VistanTN

 

[MikeD74T]

Grizzman, Show this site (http://www.aces.edu/farmsafety/Tractor_Machinery.pdf
to your FIL. Ask if he wants his grandson to see this. It's very graffic but it's very real!