ROPS: Not just for Rollovers...

[Adiredneck]

Last August, my father was working in a sandpit, clearing trees along the outside borders for expansion. He was pushing a Blue Spruce tree that was down on the ground towards a root pile so that two other guys & a very large Michigan loader could cut the tree off the stump & take the tree away with the forks on the loader. From what he remembers, and from what we can figure, is that there was a side of the root cluster that had a lot more soil still attached than the other. That factor along with some physics of where the blade of the dozer was placed, caused the tree to flop over & land directly on top of the sun shade of the 1960's era machine. He was crushed by the weight of the tree. The dozer was still in motion, and luckilly had enough resistance in front of the blade to cause it to spin & stay in place, as he was headed towards an embankment. He was unable to reach the throttle, or to kill the engine from where he was pinned to the side when he regained consciousness for a short time. The other men were able to cut the tree off. His first helecopter ride, 7 broken ribs in all, internal bleeding, and some serious recovering.

I really cringe when I see someone operating an older machine now without a ROPS.

 

[Robbie Hegwood]

Good to hear that he's recovering. Every story and picture I see remind me how quickly things can go from routine to deadly in seconds. What's amazing is the accidents that happen are usually the farthest cinario(spell) we could ever imagine. It is entirely to easy to become complaisant(spell) using equipment. Again I'm glad he's covered. Robbie

 

[Soundguy]

Yeouch!

In landclearning situations i would like a FOPS even better..

Though in this case, a ROPS may have sufficed due to where the tree fell.

hope he recovers 100%

Soundguy

 

[Thomas]

Hope your dad had full recovery.

Truely a wake up call for ROPS.

 

[tensaw12]

Thanks, We all need reminders!! I hope your Dad is doing ok Thank God. it wasn't worse

 

[scott_vt]

Afternoon Adiredneck,
Glad your Dad is going to be OK. That type of thing happens very quickly, with not much reaction time if any !

It looks like that dozer could have a enclosed cage added fairly easily.

 

[N80]

My mother's Dad (long deceased) lost a leg in bulldozer rollover in the 1950's. I still remember 'Pop's' wooden leg.

 

[Adiredneck]

Dad is definitely better now. I'd say he's 80%. He still has to wrap his arms around himself when he has a cough. He lost a lot of strength being down for a few months.

From what I've heard, ribs take a long time to heal & stop hurting.

 

[chipsndust]

Glad your Dad is healing. You're lucky to have each other.

 

[Renze]

So, if i understand it correctly, the tree was first pushed over to the ground, and when he was pushing it in horizontal position to the rootball heap, the tree came back up and flipped over on top of him ??
That's something no one could foresee or predict...


I hope he heals well. I dont know how old he is, but my dad turned 64 yesterday, and i think if it happened to him with the wear problems of his knees and finger knuckles, i think he needed a long, long time to recover...

Good luck with it