It was a pretty shocking day yesterday. My wife's mom and dad sold their farm in Missouri and are moving to be close to us in Tennessee. They are living with us until the buy a new farm. My wife's dad has extensive training on tractors and dozers working for the Missouri conservation for many years. We are in the process of building 2 new horse pastures. I have a old PHD we borrowed from a friend. I have not used it because it does not have any safety features installed(actually I was going to return it to our friend) and buy a new one. Well at work yesterday I get the call from the wife around 2 pm. She says her Dad wants to use my tractor to start drilling holes for the corner post. I tell her no and for him to wait until I get home from work. She begs him to wait until I get home before he attempts to use the PHD. Now he has used my tractor on occasions to do work around the farm and he has used farm implements all his life. Well the old boy (70) gets busy as soon as she leaves for work. Well I get the dreaded call at 5pm. He is at the emergency room in serious condition. He got off the tractor with the PTO running to get something behind the tractor. The PHD is going full speed. He trips going back to the tractor and falls into the PHD and it caught his shirt. Luckily he lost his shirt quickly. He broke his right arm in 4 places. Broke 4 ribs and is beat up pretty bad. He is lucky to be alive. My 11 year old son witnessed the whole thing and is really shook up. He is going into surgery tommorrow to have his arm set and metal plates inserted. He will be in the hospital for a few days but should make a full recovery. He is a great guy and we love him to death but he is stubborn as a mule and still thinks he is 20 years old. He refuses to use the ROPS and to put a seat belt on. I crawled his butt the other day before because he was working on the tractor with the ROPS up with no seat belt on. Go figure? We just hope this was a wakeup call for him. He was lucky and we are lucky to still have him.
I would like to just say for you grandpa's out there that have been on tractors your whole life. It can happen to you, your not 20 years old anymore. Think about your family and grand kids when you get on that tractor without a seatbelt or a ROPS. Listen to your kids when they hassle you over safety. Put that seatbelt on and pull up the ROPS its there to protect you. Get rid of the implements that don't have PTO shields and other safety features or have them installed. Your family cares about you don't be HARD HEADED!
I would like to just say for you grandpa's out there that have been on tractors your whole life. It can happen to you, your not 20 years old anymore. Think about your family and grand kids when you get on that tractor without a seatbelt or a ROPS. Listen to your kids when they hassle you over safety. Put that seatbelt on and pull up the ROPS its there to protect you. Get rid of the implements that don't have PTO shields and other safety features or have them installed. Your family cares about you don't be HARD HEADED!
