Scariest Tractor Moment

[foggy1111]

My dad was a tractor and machinery dealer back when I was a lad. I used to deliver stuff on our "ramp truck"..... a heavy duty single axel with a folding ramp on the back. So....one winter day I'm cruising down this gravel road smoking a cigarette while hauling this 6000 Ford on the back.....its very cold out....but the road is pretty good....going prolly 60 mph. I reach the top of a steep hill to go down...and the road is suddenly glare ice.

So I start shifting down to slow up the best I can....but too late.......I do a 360 (I think in the middle of the bridge....but I had my eyes closed part of the time.....so I cant be sure).

How I never hit anything or tip over or slide into the river.....I'll never know. But I downshifted and lit up another cigarette....and delivered that tractor up the road a piece.

 

[sellercreek]

I am getting an education reading all these posts.

Last summer I was bush hogging with our new JD 790. I wanted to cut a path up a long sloping trail going up the side of a dike. I could see where there was a path cut into the side of the dike so I thought I could make it up with side without a probe. I started up the path, in reverse, with the bush hog raised about twelve inches off theground. I am not good at driving a straight line when going backwards and got off the side of the path. I could feel the tractor tilting and trying to go over, or at the best slide down the very steep sides of the dike. The good Lord was watching over me as I had the good sense to drop the FEL to stabilize the tractor as I jumped on the brakes hard. It stopped sliding. I dropped the bush hog and after my heart rate slowed back to 150% of normal, slightly raised the FEl and inched down the hill to teh bottom.
I have come to the conclusion that you often run into trouble on a tractor when you take it into where it doesn't really need to be. There was no reason to try and cut that path, or to cross the low area coverd by Reed Carnary grass where I once got stuck ... When you get into area where you don't really need to be, or try to do something you shouldn't, it's gonna catch up to you sooner or later.
Be safe out there.

Amen! I, too, have concluded that there are some hillsides where the cows won't hardly go anyway that don't need cleaning up. In fact, I am seriously considering planting the steeper parts in pine and letting it grow.

 

[Lasgambler]

Another bee story, My Brother inlaw was bushhogging in Southern Mississippi and ran over a bee hive, out they came after him, he bailed off tractor, left it running and in gear. I was near by and could gear him holloring. Soon the tractor (Farmall Super A) ran into a tree and was sitting there digging a hole trying to climb the tree. Bees were swarming all around.

Not having any bee protective clothing, I put on overalls, gloves, and , (this all I had) a Large Minnow Dip Net over my head. I was able to shut the tractor off without any stings.

I think back to that time and wander how we made it. No ROPS on those tractors and so many times I would pull or try to pull stumps and have that tractor doing wheelies. I did not know then how quick they can come over.

Good stories, and I too, Think reading these stories could help make us all safer on our tractors.

 

[Rowdius]

Let's see:


I was running a 623 scraper building a landfill. Our spoil pile was probably 30 feet high, and we were dumping around a curve. Well, one of the dozer operators was cleaning up the toe of the slope and cut a little too much. I came around (30 feet above) and the slope gave way. Started to flip over, but got it sorta pointed downhill and rode the landslide down at what seem the speed of sound.


Was doing a small mowing job on my Yanmar 1500D with a 4' shredder. I was mowing along a ditch in about eye level grass. Well, the ditch widened, the slope got worse, and I discovered that I had forgotten to put the over-running clutch back on the PTO shaft some time or another, because the shredder pushed me onto the steeper slope... and then the yanmar flipped on its side. How I didn't get my size 11 EEEE feet stuck jumping off I'll never know. The tractor continued to run, the shredder and the back wheel continued to spin. Completely my fault on so many levels. I should have walked the job better, and should have looked over the equipment.

I was running a motor grader, cleaning up the last part of a job while my boss was loading the dozer. When he was done, he waved me over and told me once I was finished to take the haul truck (and dozer) to the yard for the night. An hour or two later, I jumped in the truck and hauled butt to the yard, because it was Friday. Went around a corner a little fast, heard/felt a racket. Looked back and the dozer was setting on the side of the road. The boss didn't chain the dozer down, and I didn't think to look. Again, completely my fault, and I'm lucky someone didn't get killed. I'm also lucky the dozer just slid instead of flipped.

Mowing highway right of way, up on the side of an overpass and hit a hole hidden in the grass, spindle broke and I got to watch the front, downhilll side wheel of the tractor bounce down the hill, while I tried to follow it while keeping the other three wheels pointing down. If it had been a 100 feet before, I think I would have rolled it all the way down.

Bee stories:

Running a D5 clearing brush along a creek bed for a water conservation project. Knocked over a hollow tree filled with africanized bees. They covered the dozer and followed me over a mile down the creek well over a mile. Found bees in the precleaner for over week. VERY lucky I had a cab.

Running a 320 cat exavator, grubbing trees. One of them was filled with bees. Clogged up the airfilter so bad that the machine started losing power, then on the way to the truck so many covered the radiator enough to make the engine overheat. Once I got the machine next to the truck I made a mad dash to it and got stung half a dozen times.

On an underground electric job we were using a cat extendalift to pull old wire out of the ductbank. I'd lower the forks down, someone would tie the wire to the forks, and I'd shoot the forks up into the air, pulling the wire out. At the top of the boom's reach, I'd lower the wire, one grunt would cut the wire, another would tie it off again and I'd pull another length of cable out of the ground. Of course it was getting dark on friday night, we all wanted to get finished so we could drive home to Texas for the weekend (the job was in little rock) and of course a storm was blowing it. Being young, dumb and... gungho, we all kept working until the first bolt of lightning hit about a 100 yards away. Suddenly, lifting a bundle of 4/0 copper wire 30 feet into the sky seemed like a bad idea...

Just stupid:

Doing a bridge job out in the middle of no where with my father. I was running a dozer down in the creek, and him and his crew were wrecking out the old bridge. The only place to get the dozer out of the creek was half a mile down stream, and the banks were more like walls. So, during lunch times I'd take a rope sling with a bowline tied on each end. My father would lower the hook on the ancient link belt crane he was running, I'd hook the middle of the rope sling on the hoop, put my feet in the loops, grab the wirerope and he'd haul me about 100 feet up. After lunch he'd drop me back down to my dozer. There is no enough room here to list all the bad things that could have happened...

 

[rickster]

Scariest moment was finding out my tractor could make it into my garage
with a 7' door with my ROPS up

 

[DWCox]

I was nine years old and riding in the highly raised FEL with a neighbor's kid while they were making hay. The tractor hit a bump, and the bucket unlatched and dropped us like a trap-door headfirst to the ground. The next thing I remember the front wheel of this tractor (it was full size ag) is running over my pelvis. It felt like I was getting squished like a bug. The other kid had his foot run over and was crying and so forth, but I was just kind of crawling on my stomach and groaning. I tried to get up to walk, but couldn't and knew something was definitely wrong. I also felt this weird euphoria, which I knew wasn't right given the circumstances.

It turns out my pelvis was fractured in three places. After an ambulance ride, I ended up in intensive care for a couple nights--that's a blur. However, right after x-rays I vividly remember them drilling a large pin/rod by hand straight through my lower leg bone to serve as the basis for a traction device. That hurt so much that words are not sufficient to describe it. I was in the hospital for several weeks.

To this day it kind of amazes me what we would do as kids and what adults would allow. It is borderline bizarre by today's standards, but it seemed perfectly acceptable at the time.

 

[brianidaho]

Some of the ones that come to mind were when I was a kid helping bail hay in the summer back in Western New York. Once the stacks get built up in the barn and you're working near the top of the barn, it gets bloody hot and miserable in the late afternoon. The farmer we worked for let us park the last loads of the day in the barn, then unload and stack them in the morning. So we always tried to stack the trailers and flatbed truck as high as possible. I'd be on the ground tossing bails to another guy on a "landing" on the wagon, he'd hook them up to the next guy. Seems we went too high a couple times and caught some live power lines going across the road on the way back to the barn. Not so bad in itself, just a problem trying to figure out something non-conductive to lift the wire with.

Sometimes we'd ride on the runningboards of the flatbed back to the barn. We're doing around 40 when someone pulls out in front of us, driver slams on the brakes. How we kept hold of the mirrors and didn't get thrown onto the road I'll never know. We both had big bruises from the mirror frames.

Just had an interesting one a couple days ago. I was out plowing snow along the side of our road, it slopes down maybe 45* for 10 ft or so right next to the road. I got too close to the edge trying to push the berms back and the snow pile gives way, leaving me stuck and tipping pretty steeply. I got straps and a comealong to keep the rear from rolling over, cut a couple trees and got her pointed downhill. Was able to drive her out without rolling. Keep in mind that this was a week after getting the new tractor.

 

[farmboy12]

This is a pretty good thread! Let's keep 'em comin'.


Kyle

 

[Pepper]

Well I was shredding 1 morning in july in seguin Tx It was hot (south Tx) my wife had come out And was calling me to breakfast when I was turning to come back to the house , she was a good 40 50 yards away when I hit a rock it flew through the chains (or under them) and hit her in the thigh knocking her down I had not seen her drop my nephew came running to me yelling aunt Debbie was hurt . cut the tractor off ran to her she was crying a lot and I mean a lot sent nephew to get truck (wrong) he got the new truck the one with no stratchs LOL and drove it through the brush packed her up off to the hospital big 17 inch bruise no right leg I had to tell the police what happened , he said good luck and laughed at what I was fixen to go through nothing broken just keep thinking if it would have been higher .it could have been a lot worst .

 

[Pepper]

when we first bought are place I was shredding and my left rear wheel dropped into and old hand dug water well that had been filled up long ago (they dropped brush and old mesquite trunks in it then put dirt on it)the wheel on a ford 850 isnt small but took it to the pto shaft the past owner had a oliver tractor and shedded the pasture twice a year never had a problem he let me get some creek rock to fill it up off his other place !