Safety Tips

[Mrwurm]

Hello, as you can see from my user title, this is my first post on this board. Some of you may know me from another board. (same user name) I have read the safety tips with great interest. I am always safety conscious but I do make mistakes like everyone else. I made one big mistake about three years ago. I was using a 3pt dirt scoop that I was tripping with a rope. Turns out the rope was too long. While driving across the yard with the coil of rope in my left hand, the dangling end was run over by the rear tire. The tire pulled in the rope as it drove over it. Broke four fingers on my hand and lost the tip of the ring finger just behind the nail./w3tcompact/icons/sad.gif The finger tip was reattached and works fine./w3tcompact/icons/smile.gif Sorry. for the gruesome story. I never thought a coil of rope could be dangerous./w3tcompact/icons/shocked.gif

 

[Anonymous Poster]

Jerry,

Thank you for sharing your experience… everything in life has a reference… though you broke four fingers … you could have lost your entire hand or arm… you are so fortunate… to have both hands left…

A few years ago, I was going through the woods and one of my rear tires caught a small sapling branch… as I drove over it expecting it to break (because it was so small)… it pulled the rest of the sapling over my left leg… I couldn’t lift my leg to push in the clutch to stop the tractor… I couldn’t reach the throttle or fuel shut-off to stop… my right foot could barely push on the brakes… {the sapling was wrapped around my right shoulder and across my left leg like a shoulder harness would be in a car-except the tree was stopped and I’m moving forward}

The tractor was about 1400 rpm’s with all the torque in the world… and absolutely nothing was going to stop it… as the tractor keep going forward… the branch was wrapping around the rear tire and the thicker part of the tree was cutting into my upper thigh…

I prayed to God for my leg… then all of a sudden the sapling broke… I was able to barely lift my left leg and depress the clutch to stop the tractor… I couldn’t wait… I pulled my Levi’s down to look at my leg in the middle of the woods… it felt like someone took a meat cleaver and was cutting it off… I had about a 1 ½ - 2 inch indentation in my thigh like a tight tourniquet had been wrapped around… But my leg was still there… Thank you God Almighty…

I don’t think it took more than a few seconds for all the above to happen… but it seemed like forever at the time… it’s a helpless feeling…

Accidents do always happen to the other guy… guess what folks… you could be the next ‘other guy’…… you’ll never know if your turn is next…

 

[jinman]

John, normally I stay away from discussing safety, because it's so subjective (what is dangerous for me may be safe for someone else with more experience). About 6 mos. ago after I had my new tractor, I was pushing down some saplings in my woods and being very careful because I didn't want to scratch up my new tractor too much. I thought about putting down the folding ROPS, but I figured, "Hey, it will keep me from getting into brush that is too low, and that will be good." All went well until I just barely grazed an almost horizontal postoak limb. I was concentrating on the brush I was pushing and didn't notice that my ROPS was about two inches too tall. The next thing I remember was a big crack, followed closely by me being hit in the back and shoulders and pinned against the steering wheel hard enough that the wind was knocked out of me. As I caught my breath, I reached down and released the steering wheel tilt, allowing it to move forward and give me enough relief so I could catch my breath. With my right foot on the hydro pedals, I maneuvered the tractor until I was able to find a place that allowed me to squeeze out of my trap and get off the tractor. What I saw when I looked back sent a chill down my spine. There was a 12" diameter major branch of this tree crushing the top of my seat and laying across both fenders on top of the handrails. I know those handrails are tough, because they had saved me from being crushed by this limb. I looked at the tree and it was as if the the whole trunk had been split in half. At least 1/3 of the tree was laying on top of my tractor. The ROPS had ripped it off like it was a twig and it was so heavy I could not lift it off my tractor. Had it fallen four inches forward, it would have caught my head and squashed me like a bug. /w3tcompact/icons/shocked.gif/w3tcompact/icons/blush.gif. I could see where the ROPS had hit the limb and there is no way it should have done anymore than scrape a little bark, yet the limb had just exploded off the tree. Postoaks can be deceptively weak. Even pecan trees sometimes will do the same. On this day I "dodged the bullet" and now I don't go into the woods without folding my ROPS. To get the tree off my tractor, I had to loop a chain over the branch of another tree and attach it to the limb and FEL. Using the FEL, I was able to lift the limb and then tie it in place while I got my tractor free.

Is it good advice to suggest to someone that they should not go into the woods with the ROPS up? I don't think so, but I do it and I think I am right. See what I mean by "subjective"?/w3tcompact/icons/crazy.gif

 

[Wal]

jim,

Your "rops up or rops down in the woods"sounds kind of like a "damned if you do and damned if you don't" situation. /w3tcompact/icons/wink.gif Glad you weren't seriously injured.

 

[MChalkley]

These are excellent, if sobering (more correctly, because they're sobering) posts here recently.

Your story, jinman, reminds me of a first cousin of mine who only survived an automobile "accident" because he ended up partially in the rear floor and partially between the two front bucket seats. Obviously, he wasn't wearing a seat belt. Does he wear one now? Yep. Are there situations where you might survive an accident not wearing one and be killed if you were? Yep. Are you going with the odds to not wear one for that reason? Not by a long shot.

The same is true with the ROPS, for most folks. I can see a case being made for not having one, or leaving it folded down, if you're working under a lot of branches, as in an orchard, and the ground is relatively flat, and you're operating a machine that has a low CG, and isn't configured in such a way that it can change much or suddenly. But those are a lot of ifs - enough that very very few individuals fit those circumstances.

But, the bottom line, and the thing we can all be reminded of, from your post is: If you're in the woods, you're in danger. And nothing but your head can save you from a lot of the pitfalls. And even that can't prevent all of them; the best you can hope for is to improve your chances. Great post!

 

[MossRoad]

Glad you survived. That would have scared me into getting a four point cage with roof rather than folding down the ROPS. Have you looked into this? I would be curious as to the cost vs. death ratio /w3tcompact/icons/smile.gif. I can just see me now, driving my PT425 through the woods and having a huge branch falling on the rear of the canopy, only to have it fold down and pin me againt the steering wheel. I still think I'll be better off with it than without it.

 

[jinman]

Thanks all for your good wishes. I failed to mention in my post that I identified with John Miller's sense of helplessness and that feeling that your "number is up" and later, find out that you have escaped with your all your limbs still intact. What a relief!/w3tcompact/icons/grin.gif

I don't know what the solution is, but I've taken notice to the ROPS on Thomas' tractor and maybe we could call that shortened ROPS an Orchard Mod. for those of us who spend so much time in the woods clearing brush and cleaning around trees rather than harvesting them. If my ROPS was the same height as my head, it would provide all the protection I need because anything low enough to be hit with the ROPS would first hit me in the head and wake me up./w3tcompact/icons/blush.gif Another mod. might be a simple "U" shaped section that clamps onto the ROPS and extends out just above the operator. /w3tcompact/icons/hmm.gif Any other good ideas out there? I'm sure I'd rip a canopy off in less than a week.

 

[BMW]

Everyone has raised some good points. In my line of work we do a lot of what is currently called Risk Management. This is basically asking the following questions for a given situation:
What are the hazards?
What could cause the hazard?
What would the effect be?
What precautionary measures can be taken to prevent this from happening or to mitigate the effect?
What corrective actions should be taken if the hazard occurs?
What is the probability that the hazard will occur?
Given these answers you determine what hazards you can’t get rid of thru the precautions. For each of these, look at how bad the effect is tied with how likely it will occur and figure out what you are going to get out of the situation is worth the risk.

Sometimes we just need to stop and think about what we are doing. I try to do this when ever I get on the tractor.

Later
Mark

 

[Egon]

JIM;

ROP'S : Many years ago I watched a presentation showing a cat D9 with ROP'S being rolled over an embankment such as " The Glueguy " is familiar with. Stuff fell of the tractor but the ROP'S stayed intact. It had a much different system than the singe roll bar. It.s a cage actually and if one like it were installed on you tractor you would be protected from falling objects. The roll bars I see are minimal protection at best.

Egon

 

[MChalkley]

I've posted this story before, but it might have been on the previous board. When I was a kid, my dad had a pulpwood business. One day, the guy who liked to "take charge" in the woods when the real supervisor wasn't there coerced the rest of the crew into helping him take the ROPS/FOPS of the dozer. Later that day, he was pushing some stuff and wound a small tree up around the stump it was partially attached to. The tree rode up the blade, popped over the top, took the exhaust pipe off, hit him in the mouth, lifted him up out of the seat, and threw him a ways behind the dozer. Took every tooth in the front of his mouth out, broke his jaw and face bones in a bunch of places, and screwed his neck and back up for a while. He was very fortunate it didn't kill him. Oh yeah, by the way, the first order of business the next morning was to put the ROPS/FOPS back on...