I can immediately remember four very valued friends and customers who died when I was still in the business - prior 1962 - with front end loader accidents.  I thought with the advent of Roll Over Protection Systems (ROPS) that this accident had been eliminated.  

To all my fellow forum members please when using a front end loader or similar implement please be VERY CAREFUL  Remember your basic front end loader actions - as the lift goes up the center of gravity rises too.  A chuck hole can roll a tractor.  If you have the ROPS system be certain it is properly used.

I do not want to lose any more of my valued friends.

Good Luck!

Bill Long

Good Luck!

Bill Long

The physics of operating machinery gets very complicated, very fast, and we do it so often that in short order, the machine becomes an extension of our bodies.  We then focus more and more on the task we're doing, and forget the little gotchas that can turn really bad.

The scary scenario which I recall... but fortunately turned out okay due to quick thinking... was a guy operating a skid-steer, fully enclosed, on a jobsite across the street from my training location in downtown Boston.   There was a hole on the site that had about 6 feet of water in it.  The hole was apparently undermined a bit on one side, He got a bit too close to the edge while backing and turning, ground collapsed and tumbled off the ledge, down into the water.  the two side tires were visible, the rest (including the cab) was under.

Quick thinking of a crane operator with a free hook, swung over, and one of the others jumped in, hooked a hard part, and hoisted the machine up, laid it on it's side... they broke the window, let the water out, and he was thankfully still alive.  Took a while to get it righted, and the boom down to open the door, but alive.

Had it had an 'open' ROPS, there was a chance he could have been able to slip out from the side.  With NO ROPS, it would probably have pinned him.  With the glass, the cab filled slowly enough that he had a chance to take a deep breath, and his co-workers were fast in responding.

The really serious concern for agricultural accidents nowdays, is that so much farm work, being mechanized, occurs by a farmer all by himself.  This obviously means there's nobody else around to get hurt by a running machine, but it also means that if something goes wrong, the operator might not have a sight-line to appearing problems, and worse yet, if something goes wrong, there's nobody to jump in and help.

When I hear about these accidents, I look around me and see old tractor guys, that if they were to have some simple little problem... pants snagged on a sharp corner, boot sole stuck alongside a pedal... and they wound up dumped over against an embankment, they'd be alive, but how long 'till someone found them?

We can't eliminate danger, we just hafta do the best we can to see it before it happens... and plan for things to go wrong... and be careful.