One inch from death

[part-time-Farmer-NC]

Wow, glad you had that extra inch... Praying for a full quick recovery for you. I have broken one rib a couple of times, no picnic that's for sure.

 

[murphy1244]

It’s also a good idea to lower the loader bucket with front edge facing down on the ground or lower a heavy implement on the 3ph when dismounting from a tractor.

We call that weighing anchor here

 

[mllud]

Wow !. Ruined my dreams tonight. OK, so run the play backwards and describe what and when would have been the simplest & easiest change in the play to have had it come out better? I don't mean "Shudda stayed in bed." Just where did this opera go bad ?

Only the guy with cracked and dislocated ribs can replay in slow motion. I'm sure he has replayed it over and over and knows the simple solution was to secure the tractor.
I think this is an example of getting to comfortable with his tractor. Many of us do it.
The smart ones play it safe every time. I'm wising up with age but still play the odds.
All It takes is one wrong move and you die.
I got to know a friends neighbor a little. One day my friend says that Ralfe got killed.
While he was on his skid steer he reached out to try and pull a piece of wire off of his tire. He hit the handle and the boom dropped on his head. The F..D. said he didn't suffer. Dead in seconds. No second chance. He was a wise man but made one wrong move
Mr. S IS LUCKY; he gets to play another day.
Over confidence kills!!

 

[Jstpssng]

We call that weighing anchor here

It doesn't work though, if the implement is a rototiller. That just rolls along with the tractor.

 

[Jstpssng]

A former TBN member who called himself Oldpath05 lives downstate from me in a town of under 1000. It seemed like he could be a little rough on his equipment.

Last summer an older man from his town overloaded the forklift attachment on his skid steer and it bucked, throwing him out of the machine. Liberty man injured after getting trapped under work vehicle - NewsBreak

I don't think Oldpath was that old, but have wondered if it was him.

 

[mllud]

A former TBN member who called himself Oldpath05 lives downstate from me in a town of under 1000. It seemed like he could be a little rough on his equipment.

Last summer an older man from his town overloaded the forklift attachment on his skid steer and it bucked, throwing him out of the machine. Liberty man injured after getting trapped under work vehicle - NewsBreak

I don't think Oldpath was that old, but have wondered if it was him.

He lived but you can bet at 80 years old he lost some ability and some extended years. It sounds bad.

 

[dodge man]

I had a room mate in college who got run over by a tractor tire when he was in high school. Something was wrong with it and you had to jump the starter from underneath. Yeah that doesn’t sound safe does it. He left it in gear and he had time to roll over once or it would have got his chest. It crushed his pelvis. He laid there for several hours before they came looking for him, on a hot summer day. It wasn’t too long before pain set in. He healed up good but walked a little funny.

 

[etpm]

It crushed his pelvis. He laid there for several hours before they came looking for him, on a hot summer day. It wasn’t too long before pain set in.

I had my pelvis broken in front and in back when I got hit by a truck. It does really hurt. Because I was in shock so bad the EMTs couldn't give me any pain killers, my blood pressure being so low. So it was about three hours before my first dose of morphine. I can totally sympathize. Especially having to wait several hours.
Eric

 

[CalG]

Since we are chatting about close calls......

In my younger days, I had a VW bus. It was a green window van. a Hippy mobile and it served me well after rebuilding the engine a couple of times. I was young, remember?

Anyway, One day while living in Northern New Hampshire, (Littleton area) I pulled into the drive at my friend Ron's house and jumped out. I hadn't made five steps away from the van when I sensed something amiss. Sure enough, the van started rolling.
Now my friend Ron lived in a house that was just uphill of the Ammonoossuc river, with a frontage road below. Call it about 45 feet of elevation down to the water with a dirt path between.
Well, Being young and adventurous, I got it in my head to jump into that VW van that was making it's way backwards down the slope to the river in the prospect of saving it from a watery ending.
The drivers door was swinging open as I had not closed it, I got my hands on the steering wheel, but somehow my legs didn't quite make the leap into the drivers seat where I had hoped to stomp on the brake pedal. Instead, my left leg got sort of sucked into the gap between the tire and the fender and wrapped it's self along side the steering and suspension links. I was seriously FU**ed! As the bus bounced down the slope.

However.....

As my leg was jambed solid in the wheel well, the tire and wheel were not rotating, and my leg served to steer the front wheels that resulted in the VW turning across the fall line of the slope, and not straight down into the Ammonoosuc, and so... the bus came to rest! Me at it's side, face down in the brush and soil, caught!

Now I was still trapped, My leg was really jammed in between the tire and body of the bus. I layed there for about two or three minutes collecting my whits and breathing deep.
Now, I didn't know if my friend Ron was home or not, but as I didn't see many options, I just started bellowing "HELLLLLPPPP" In the lowest possible voice I could muster, knowing that the low frequencies carried greater distances. Well, my bellowing worked, and after about 5 minutes, (seemed like ages) Ron and another friend emerged from his house.
Now, he couldn't see me, or the van at first, as I was over the bank and half way down the hill, and there was brush. But I bellowed again and the two friends rushed over to where I was "being detained" ;-).
Now the front end of a VW bus is not particularly heavy, and my two friends, by just lifting on the front bumper, generated enough free space where I was able to extract my trapped leg myself. On evaluation, Nothing was broken! Only strains and bruises! The bus was hauled out with Ron's pickup, and all was well.
I will not elucidate the details of how I celebrated my good fortune! ;-)

But I could have been killed , or worse!

 

[scootr]

I got swept out to sea in strong rip tide. I was young and a strong swimmer. I was swimming outside of the big breakers way offshore before I finally realized what was happening. I was fighting the current but I was definitely going further and further out, fast. Near exhaustion from fighting the current I figured I had to swim up or down the coast. It worked and I got out of the rip tide but I was about all in until I realized I was probably in shark territory... and the thought of being eaten alive while drowning sent me paddling in fear for the now distant shore. Every muscle screamed for mercy and the shore looked to be a mile away. I told myself I only had to make it to the breakers and then I could just body surf in. When I got the shore it took 30 minutes for me to gather the strength to stand and start the long walk along the beach to my blanket. I plopped myself down and my future wife and her friend asked me, where have you been? One of many, I should have died days. Life is a gift

 

[tradosaurus]

Still not sure how the guy was knocked over. Did the the back tire hit him?

 

[riptides]

I got swept out to sea in strong rip tide. I was young and a strong swimmer. I was swimming outside of the big breakers way offshore before I finally realized what was happening. I was fighting the current but I was definitely going further and further out, fast. Near exhaustion from fighting the current I figured I had to swim up or down the coast. It worked and I got out of the rip tide but I was about all in until I realized I was probably in shark territory... and the thought of being eaten alive while drowning sent me paddling in fear for the now distant shore. Every muscle screamed for mercy and the shore looked to be a mile away. I told myself I only had to make it to the breakers and then I could just body surf in. When I got the shore it took 30 minutes for me to gather the strength to stand and start the long walk along the beach to my blanket. I plopped myself down and my future wife and her friend asked me, where have you been? One of many, I should have died days. Life is a gift

Sounds familiar, minus the shark thoughts.

 

[riptides]

A serious question -

How many of you have that inner voice speak to you just before you do something that resulted in a bad situation?

 

[WinterDeere]

A serious question -

How many of you have that inner voice speak to you just before you do something that resulted in a bad situation?

I broke a rib (not my first) last summer, tubing behind a boat. An activity I did several weeks every summer as a teen, but maybe not the brightest idea at my current age.

Rolling off the tube at high speed was a concious decision, it was going squirrely and my son was on the tube with me, one of those tandom-seating hotdog things. I figured, I could just roll off and save him from getting violently launched, but I had that voice in my head saying, "this might hurt." It was right!

Good news is that the driver, who was really going a bit too fast for the conditions, saw me dive off and backed off the throttle to come back around. So, my son was spared the same abuse.

 

[scootr]

A serious question -

How many of you have that inner voice speak to you just before you do something that resulted in a bad situation?

I listen to that little voice now that I'm older and wiser but I just passed it off as chicken when I was young...hence all the scars and broken bones of my youth.

 

[BackRoad]

May of '24 my 14 Yr old, great swimmer, granddaughter got caught in a rip current while we were vacationing down on the FL panhandle. I went in after her.

I was both a BSA and Red Cross trained Life Guard in my teens...but that was 50 years ago. The event is still too close to go into detail, but together we both made it out. She had started to give up, and it was only a deep commitment to her that kept me going. I believe either one of us doing it alone would have had a different ending.

At first it generated lots of nightmares, had one again at 4:43am this morning - I can't sleep after them. But they are becoming less frequent.

If you've ever been there you know the feeling...it is the only time in my life which I knew I had crossed the edge where life meets death.

 

[scootr]

May of '24 my 14 Yr old, great swimmer, granddaughter got caught in a rip current while we were vacationing down on the FL panhandle. I went in after her.

I was both a BSA and Red Cross trained Life Guard in my teens...but that was 50 years ago. The event is still too close to go into detail, but together we both made it out. She had started to give up, and it was only a deep commitment to her that kept me going. I believe either one of us doing it alone would have had a different ending.

At first it generated lots of nightmares, had one again at 4:43am this morning - I can't sleep after them. But they are becoming less frequent.

If you've ever been there you know the feeling...it is the only time in my life which I knew I had crossed the edge where life meets death.

I was also a certified swimmer. At 24 yrs old I was fit and wanted to swim outside the big breakers. Big mistake. West coast shores are steep and the waters are deep and the currents are strong. Ocean swimming ain't no pool. And riptides ain't no joke. Glad you were able to save your granddaughter and yourself.

 

[ponytug]

There was a decade or so when I was losing a young colleague or acquaintance a year to sleeper waves. It felt a bit like Cassandra as I was repeatedly telling folks to never, ever turn your back on the Pacific around here. 50-54F is cold water, and even excellent swimmers get into trouble pretty quickly in the cold water and then there are the slippery rocks to get back out...

Come to think of it, it wasn't a great decade. I lost the most experienced technical diver I have ever known to a silt out in a cave with a newbie, and another highly experienced diver to a rare shark attack- his second and last... (the first time the shark simultaneously bit him and his air tank, greatly minimizing his injuries.)

I often hear that little voice. These days it is usually when I am up a ladder, with something sharp, and the voice goes "... You know..., this would not be a good time for an earthquake." After decades of being at heights without safety gear or lines, I did gear up last year, but I'm not kidding myself that I'm proficient. Yes, I don't get close to roof edges out here. Neither do I work under vehicles without at least three supports, or work on live electrical circuits anymore.

I definitely owe my life to a bystander who saw me ignoring that voice, and contemplating how I was going to cross a new (and therefore very unstable) landslide that terminated at the bottom in a roaring, icy, white water river. He whistled from half a mile away and waved me off. I would probably still be buried under the rock if he hadn't happened along. Definitely a "there but for the Grace of God moment..."

Stay safe!

All the best,

Peter

 

[Rovcketman357]

Missed jumping on and was run over by the back wheel. Was on the side opposite the brakes I believe. Those old Ford 8Ns had a difficult to use brake lock I believe like my old JD M had. You have to reach down and flip a lever to lock the pedal- I think. So they don't get used very often. I know i did not lock my M brakes more than twice in the 45 years I owned it. And the 8N has no FEL to lower to ack as a brake, just turn the wheels up hill but in this case they got turned downhill somehow. I don't have the full story of the chain of events yet. Waiting till he heals up some and then I can seriously bust his ass. He knows that is coming. I have started always pulling the brake lever on my L3600 now.

 

[scootr]

I was mowing with the big Terex 640 tractor close to the creek edge. I wanted to see just how close to the 2 ft drop off edge my front tire was on a sweeping curve. So I stopped and foolishly jumped off the off side closest to the creek and my dam T shirt slipped over the loader lever instantly jerking the 1500 lb 4 way bucket skyward, scaring me nearly to death. Thankfully I was not too close to the edge and the sudden change in balance had no effect on the tractor staying up or tipping in. But if it had I would have been seriously injured or worse as I was on the downside hooked to the machine. Be careful and don't do stupid stuff LIKE ME .