Watch out for limbs when you move a down tree

[bcp]

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Tree Falls from Tractor Loader

Summary
A 61-year-old male farmer working alone in his timber was killed while using a tractor equipped with a front end loader and a backhoe. He was using the machine to move logs and downed trees into position for cutting into firewood. He had cut down a large tree with multiple limbs and was carrying it with the loader when it apparently rolled off the bucket and a branch struck him in the face and neck area pinning him to the tractor. The tractor had no ROPS, nor was the man wearing any head protection. His wife found him in the tractor seat, with head and neck injuries and bluish complexion. The tractor was tilted to the side with the right rear wheel raised and the engine still running. His wife tried to rescue him by using the backhoe and bucket hydraulics, but in the process tipped the tractor over, throwing both of them clear of the machine. CPR was attempted by the wife and later by emergency personnel when they arrived, but it was unsuccessful, and the farmer was pronounced dead at the local hospital.

 

[Utopia Texas]

With any machinery you have to plan ahead what you are going to do next and stop if you think it may put you at risk. In my 50+ years of driving farm tractors, and with mistakes I made, they all happened so quick there was almost no time to react. You have to envision the possibilities before they happen. The one factor I turned over happened lightening quick. It was not a slow motion proposition!