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Chief
Join Date: Jul 2003
Posts: 4297 Southwest MiddleTennessee
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2003-05-27          55690


A horrible accident that demonstrates why following safety procedures is important. Found this browsing around. Maybe some of you have seen this article.


Link:   PTO accident article Link

 


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DrMorgan
Join Date: Jul 2003
Posts: 16 Upstate NY
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2003-05-27          55691


I'm lucky. I wear a toupe, so whenever my hair gets caught in the PTO shaft, no worries. ....


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plots1
Join Date: Jul 2003
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2003-05-27          55702


Her first and most fatal was mistake was made by leaving tractor seat with pto ingadged. sounds like she didn't read saftey book at all.Some people just are not the sharpest pencils in the pack.people like that have no buisness being around a tractor or any thing with a motor.harmful to themselfs and others. ....


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TomG
Join Date: Feb 2002
Posts: 5406 Upper Ottawa Valley
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2003-05-27          55705


The tragedy of an accident shouldn't be diminished but there's a story in my family that's sort of funny but could have been tragic. A modest Danish uncle of mine was working probably with a pto driven grain auger. That was when tractors still had mid-pto drums and unshielded pto shafts. His overalls caught in the shaft and he was lucky to get out of them but they were pretty much shredded. My aunt was holding a card party and my uncle wouldn't go back to the house till everybody left--at least according to my cousins.

Lots of pto accidents happened and that's why there are shields today. I went to school with somebody who had a hook instead of a hand and a bunch of scars as well. Happens in an instant and the aftermath is tough thing for a young man to live with and for a long time. After a bunch of beer he'd occasionally bash the glass out of parking meters. Something a hook could do but nobody else could. No way to make that anything but tragic.

Safety is best when good practice becomes automatic. Reading about it is a pain, hearing about or thinking about it is worse. Still it's good to get the ideas in mind and go through a kind of checklist till good habits are fairly reliable.

For example, know where your feet are is standard advice and it sounded dumb till I dropped a forklift carriage on my foot. It slides down the carriage each and every time I mount it, so why was my foot under it? Who knows! Took me a minute or so to retrieve my foot and I still wear the safety boot that has a cut down to the steel cap.
....


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AC5ZO
Join Date: Jul 2003
Posts: 928 Rio Rancho, NM 87144
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2003-05-30          56014


Plots, I have to disagree with you on this one. There are lots of valid reasons for getting off the tractor with a PTO running, although operating a hay baler may not be a very good example of that. PTO Generators, Feed grinders and a host of other pieces of equipment use the tractor as a stationary power unit.

In my opinion, the safety rule that was seriously violated here is one regarding loose clothing and hair. Tom's story was a second example. Clothing and hair that are confined close to the body rarely get caught in the moving works.

I have spent a lot of time around metal machining operations and have often had to wear a necktie for my jobs. There are safety procedures that become second nature to you, provided you survive your first close call or see someone else violate the rules and get hurt. (Being told has little impact on some of us.) I have personally seen catastophic amputations and other serious injuries and I cannot remember a single one that was just dumb luck. All were avoidable even in situations involving overhead lifting and open moving machinery. ....


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plots1
Join Date: Jul 2003
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2003-05-30          56024


If you read the artical it stated she got of to make adjustments to imp . knowing adjustments had to be made around PTO it should of been disengadged before dismounting.still sounds she was as brite as a burnt out bulb to me! bye the way most new CUT motor's will kill when you lift off the seat, they added that to remind you how deadly it is to be off tractor with pto is running.there is a switch to ingadge it while off but thats intended for people with common sence. ....


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AC5ZO
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2003-05-30          56030


Plots, I meant no offense, but I respectfully disagree that it is fundamentally unsafe to dismount a tractor with the PTO running. Maybe that is not what you meant in your posting. I read the article and as I said a hay baler is not a good example of an implement where you would generally get off the tractor with it running. I know of many injuries from hay balers and consider them to be one of the more dangerous farm implements.

I agree with you that the operator made several mistakes here. If any one of the mistakes had been rectified, then this probably would not have made the UC Davis paper. No loose clothes or hair and the likelihood of getting caught goes down. Proper training and the likelihood of getting hurt goes down. Disengage the PTO and the likelihood goes down even further, but injury can still happen with farm equipment from stores energy in springs, from roll overs, and a host of other problems.

My tractor (2002 model) has that same switch that you mention. All I have to do to keep the tractor running is set the brake. I can live with that and it is a perfectly reasonable requirement when operating the tractor as a stationary power unit. Others have a switch under the seat that can be pulled to allow the tractor to operate. I don't bypass these switches, because I know that one second of lapse in my attention could be made worse if there were not backups to my common sense. I grew up on a farm with tractors that had no such protective switches and common sense was the only thing that would keep you from being hurt.

I have seen lots of bright people make mistakes that have cost them or someone else an injury. I continue to work around machinery that cannot be completely guarded or made "idiot proof." Everytime you think that you have all the holes covered some idiot proves you wrong. Training and experience are the keys here. Complacency continues to be an issue even with trained and experienced operators.

Here is a short list of tasks that I consider necessary and safe for dismounting the running tractor. PTO power generation, feed grinding and processing, log splitting, running a lumbermill or saw, running a conveyor, running a compressor. I am sure that there are more. Running a hay baler is not on my list. ....


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plots1
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2003-05-30          56033


I didn't take as a downer, just figured that it should be used as a word of caution in this safety forum.always use head when doing any PTO work. It can foul you up in a hurry if you don't stay brite. ....


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Chief
Join Date: Jul 2003
Posts: 4297 Southwest MiddleTennessee
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2003-05-30          56047


I hear ya AC5ZO! After 21 years of watching soldiers around equipment, I adopted the "Balsa Wood Hammer Theory" When designing something for durability or safety, assume that the users are able to destroy and solid iron ball with a balsa wood hammer. I have seem some of the best pilots I have every known make mistakes. Some paid the ultimate price, some lived to tell the story. The same applies to tractor safety. We can pick apart and find fault but the idea here is to create awareness and train good habit transfer technique. ....


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Peters
Join Date: Feb 2002
Posts: 3034 Northern AL
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2003-05-30          56057


Reading Toms story reminded me that accidents can happen no matter what the horse power of the PTU (power takeoff unit).
My dad tells a story about having a wrangler come over with his stallion to service the Clides. As he entered the corral the stallion got excited and as the stallion raised up his shaft got stuck in his loose fitting pocket. He was bounce around like a rag doll until the pocket riped off the overalls. Luckally he was bruised but not seriously injured.
Peters ....


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harvey
Join Date: Sep 2000
Posts: 1550 Moravia, NY
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2003-05-31          56092


Lot of good points.

How many times have I had to work on a bale knotter. Can't see what it is not doing if the PTO is not running.

Have many times did a hear a strange sound back in the chopper. Need it running to feel gear boxes for vibrations look at sprockets and chains moving smoothly.

Many times I have thought I'll be careful... Then I see a 1armed farmer a thought I bet he thought the same thing...

It is a good reminder to be extra careful wear good fitting clothes that are in good condition. And never touch anything or reach over anything that is moving or turning.

These examples may drive a safety freak crazy but they are an every day occurance.

You have to understand the danger and be willing to accept the risk.

This again falls back to EXPERIENCE. Some things are best left to contractors and experienced people.

Yup you have to try things to gain experience. Hopefully you have an experienced person to explain or show how to do it. I do not care for working with electricity. BUT I have learned what is an acceptable risk for me. I've watched electricians work on 440 volt lines, that are live, standing in water... NOT ME. I consider myself fairly capiable working with 110 and 220 and I can work on them hot if I need to.

I find the switch under the seat a real pain. I sit in/on equipment all day driving or operating. When I mow my lawn and want to scratch my self I stand up and stretch...

Harvey ....


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AC5ZO
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2003-06-02          56324


I grew up on a farm and later sold farm equipment. When I was selling farm equipment, I would meet many survivors of bad accidents. On our farm, we never had any serious equipment accidents, and I have to admit, that we did not always follow the safety rules that I am more stringent about nowadays.

We had more problems with the animals. A tusked boar ripped my dad's leg open from ankle to the back of the knee. We also had Brahma bulls. They were the animals largely responsible for me learning how to jump over a fence in one smooth action.

Later I became an engineer and had a lot of experience around heavy equipment and metal working. The "chip" coming off of a large lathe is the size of a bandsaw blade and just about as sharp. Operator training is key with dealing with this type of hazard and the same goes for many types of farm equipment.

I saw a trained machinist lose a finger because he was day dreaming. He was using a milling machine with a fly cutter. The fly cutter moves so fast that you cannot see it. It cuts a very large circle for smoothing large objects. Anyway, chips sometimes build up inside the circular path of the tool and the machinist reached toward them to clean off his workpiece. The fly cutter hit him. It just takes one second of inattention. ....


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