Post Hole Digger Death

[RSKY]

A lady in our county died yesterday due to an accident involving a tractor powered post hole digger.

Details are unavailable but what I have heard (from one of the EMTs) is that one arm got hung in the auger and she tried to free it with the other and it also became entangled. Both arms were ripped off before her husband could disengage.

Shuddering

I rode a post hole digger for two summers as my dad and I put up more that two miles of fencing. Old Ford didn't have enough down force to push digger down so I held it straight as it started to dig and rode it all the way down. Had to wear slip on shoes, tight jeans, no belt, and a very tight too small t-shirt. Parent would be thrown in jail for that now. Dad always had his foot on the clutch and one hand on the throttle so he could shut it down in a hurry. I was 14 and 15 years old during those summers.

This scares the H E double L our of me.

 

[Steppenwolfe]

That is really a shame. Some people just don't realize how deadly some of the implements we use are. I grew up working on farms in the 70's, and it was quite common to see farmers with one hand, because the other was lost to a corn picker.

 

[TomSeller]

That is really too bad, I hate to hear of such accidents. Those 3 pt augers are dangerous if you need downforce and don't have it. Be safe, get a downforce kit or a FEL mount hyd auger. FEL mounts are a 1 person operation safely in the seat of the tractor.

 

[2LaneCruzer]

That is really too bad, I hate to hear of such accidents. Those 3 pt augers are dangerous if you need downforce and don't have it. Be safe, get a downforce kit or a FEL mount hyd auger. FEL mounts are a 1 person operation safely in the seat of the tractor.

I know of at least one instance where a guy lost his leg when the digger picked up an old fence that was below the surface of the ground and took him with it. Those thing are scary.

 

[TomSeller]

I know of at least one instance where a guy lost his leg when the digger picked up an old fence that was below the surface of the ground and took him with it. Those thing are scary.

Wow, I never thought of that. Some barbed wire buried in the grass wrapping your ankle and pulling you in would be dangerous.

 

[RoyJackson]

This should be posted in the Safety forum....for more people to read.

 

[kg7il]

This thread has me thinking.

I usually sit in the seat while operating the PHD, but I have had my adult son's nearby, while digging on my old property.

I'll have to worry more about buried barbed wire now.

 

[TomSeller]

http://www.westkentuckystar.com/New...es-County-Woman-Dies-in-Tractor-Incident.aspx

 

[3930dave]

I can't begin to imagine what her husband went through, and is now going through.

As a kid, I helped on a threshing crew. Still dangerous, but in some respects I think that the big/long drive belts that the old tyme stationary implements were driven with provided much more natural visual warning - most kids over about 8 y/o knew instinctively to keep clear - farm kids at least.

A hired hand on a relative's farm got his boot laces tangled up in a PHD. I believe his foot was saved, but he broke most of the bones below the knee in that leg/ankle.

Visually, the auger appears as dangerous, and it certainly is. I too hadn't thought about buried objects like an old fence, that adds a whole new dimension of danger.

In most advanced industrial (factory) environments it has been mandated for a long time that all rotating shafts and assemblies be guarded.

What is extremely easy to forget about is the PTO shaft itself. IMO, from an evolutionary standpoint, our eye/brain link is not naturally programmed to interpret a round spinning PTO shaft as DANGER.

Can I say as a young lad, I never jumped over a rotating PTO shaft ? No. A bit of luck got me past those days, and I now treat anything connected to a big powerful tractor with a lot more respect.

Condolences to the family, and community.

Rgds, D.

 

[TomSeller]

I recall my dad chewing me out one time that I ran between the tractor and baler. I never forgot that. He sure impressed on me what would have happened if I tripped and he didn't see me fall down. Machinery is dangerous and I bet the husband in this case will be haunted by the accident.

 

[GYPSY]

not to takeaway from the post, but a fella a few years back my way got caught up in the pto shaft of his rotary cutter. whatever the heck happened, he got off with the pto engaged and some part of his clothing got caught up in the shaft and wrapped him silly around it causing a horrible death. man, gotta be careful around power equipment of any kind let alone one that have serious hp.

 

[jwmorris]

I think I was 11 when my Grandfather told me a story about a boy he knew when he was young getting the cuf of his overalls caught on a bolt holding a coupler to a PTO shaft. It didn't kill him but took all the skin from the family jewels and inner leg and stripped it down to the ankle in the process of breaking all of the leg bones.

To this day I am never around an operating PTO shaft that I don't think of that story.

 

[buickanddeere]

Too many people want to "get er done" as quick as possible with a minimal investment of cash.

 

[TomSeller]

Too many people want to "get er done" as quick as possible with a minimal investment of cash.

Right, or without shutting down for a moment for safety. In this case she was likely trying to guide the head or put down pressure on it, but certainly there could have been a safer way.

 

[Renze]

I saw a guy posting pictures on another site, of a potato digger with a photo of where he was caught. (no photos of the actual event) he got out lucky, tried to kick a foil plug out of the separator. If you do it with running machine you can just push the plug through it, if you shut it down you have to pull it ALL out by hand.

I asked him about next time... he said next time he'd shut the machine down... I said how long before you do it again in a hurry ? because it WILL happen again when the skies turn dark and the work must continue... you better carry a wooden stick to poke in the foil rollers, so you can stand at safe distance and all it can do is pull the stick out of your hands... He thought that was a good idea.

Its just human nature to ignore safety when you're in a hurry... You can tell yourself a thousand times you'll keep clear of a running machine, but when getting frustrated you WILL do something stupid, so you better take a stick so you dont have to use your limbs.

 

[Eyecatcher]

When I was 10 yrs old, we had an old 10-20 belted up to a feed grinder, grinding corn to feed the cows. Something jammed up, and dad jumped the belt to kill the tractor before everything broke. Caught his toe under the belt, and it flipped him head over heels, and he came down on his head. Was laid up all winter, and two years later was diagnosed with brain cancer, which ultimately took his life. When he was a young man, he had been kicked in the head by a mule, and had never suffered any consequences from it. The doctors said that a small tumor had formed from the kick, and some 30 years later, the belt accident had aggravated that dormant growth, and resulted in the cancer. As I recall the grinder cleared itself, and went humming along until I was able to shut down the tractor. That was 65 years ago, and I can still see him tumbling through the air.

 

[ishiboo]

Very sad.

When I bought my CountyLine (Speco) I noticed they even removed the long-handled guide from the back. For liability reasons they don't even want someone holding on to a five foot pole attached to the thing.

Did my fence and the old farmer I had working for me wanted to guide it down each time… had to keep telling him his services went only as far as locating the hole and then it was time to move away!