Don't repeat my painful and embarrassing screw up.

[Suburban Plowboy]

Glad you're okay.

 

[homedad]

I caused my old Ford 800 to run over both of my upper legs about a week ago and I am now out of the hospital. I thought I would let you what I did. The first thing I did wrong was bypass the shifting mechanism's safety mechanism that would not let the starter run if it was not in natural. The second thing I did, as an 82 year old, was sit on the ground with legs flat on the ground in front of rear wheel and push the starter button. The tractor started immediately and slowly, it was in first gear, ran over both of my legs. The good thing that happened was that it went a ways further until a strong front axle caught on a good fitting and strong tree that held it in place where it ran spinning it rear wheels until it ran out of gas. The next bad thing I did was forget to take my cell phone with me so I had to drag myself by hand over a hundred yards back to the house and up the porch steps to get my wife to hear me and get us on the road to the hospital.

It turns out that for my age, my bones were quite strong I only have a slight crack in the lower leg bone on my right leg, the first one ran over, so I don't even need a cast. The second thing is not so bad, when they checked me out they found I have very high white blood cell count and had to be in the hospital four days on an IV to get that fixed. In reality, I am lucky as hell, the leg damage was not so bad, the tractor catching on a tree and running out of gas, and they discovered a serious problem when it put me in the hospital. But don't undo the safety mechanism on your tractor hoping for the same kind of good results. I still have tractor tread bruises on my right thigh.

I’m surprised you made it to 82.

 

[Suburban Plowboy]

I’m surprised you made it to 82.

Not necessary.

 

[CloverKnollFarms]

I'm still curious about what was being attempted at the time of the accident

 

[kneedeep]

I try to be careful working on equipment, any more injuries and I’m done.

 

[deezler]

Sure glad you are ok and healing up already, but.... what the heck? Bypass the safety, sit down on ground, and put your legs under the rear tire, then start it up in gear?!?!

@pecanjim , what could have possibly prompted you to do this? Troubleshooting other electrical issues?

 

[ray66v]

Safety equipment and regulations, usually have an injury, or death related to them.

Glad the OP is doing well now.

 

[Eagle1]

I hope to not be the reason for a new warning label mandated.

 

[ultrarunner]

Good thing the tree was able to stop the tractor… no telling what mayhem was prevented…

Lost a good friend in his 80’s that grew grapes… he got off the tractor and stumbled with the rear tire running over his abdomen… crawled to the house and weeks in intensive care could not save him… brake not set properly and with it running not able to have it in gear.

Another was was tilling with his FarmAll Cub and a tiller caught the side of his face… horrific but he survived… 75 at the time…

Both fully blamed themselves… both said not thinking.

 

[scootr]

You are not the only one to do something dangerously stupid under a vehicle. I'll spare you all of my stories. Glad you are on the mend and I'll bet you won't do that again !