safety......!!!!!!!!

About 4 years ago I lost a good friend.....he was a fit 74 year old guy....former long haul driver. He was found underneath a 1200 lb roll of hay.....tractor still running.....just in the midst of a routinue feeding.
This afternoon a car showed up in the driveway......news de je vue.......a classmate...age 72... that had rented the pastures here for 14-15 years while I was too busy to maintain things......was feeding just before dark yesterday.....the same....crushed by a roll.
My wife is really up in arms now about my small activity......just a few hungry head......and I'll not be able to hoist a roll up without remembering................and I will vow to NEVER walk under a roll.......I made that same vow on the first loss...and of course have grown a bit lax over time.......??
I'm leaving in a few minutes to visit the family......I'm going to hate the drive.....

Just a reminder to all on this site.........thanks friends

Farming.. things can go from well, too he!!..In a blink

Thanks for the reminder. Going to feed this eve.
So sorry for your loss

Ow, sorry to hear!
Farming is all sorts of dangerous

Too many years in the woods. I never walk under anything held up by hydraulics. Never tilt the bale spear much past level. And as soon as a bale is off the pile it goes down to just a few inches off the ground.

Sorry for your loss. I lost way too many in those years in the woods to not learn from their loss.

Same thing happened to local here 7 years ago. Had dog in cab, went to open gate with bale in air and dog jumped on joystick, tilting bale. Bale fell on his leg, he got from underneath it, but had severed femoral artery - he bled out internally. Took a while for investigators to figure out what happened, until they moved the bale and found his boot underneath. Very sad, him and I had a good BS session just a couple days before it happened.

I always keep bales low and only work during daylight hours. Too many accidents happen at night. Working alone gives me healthy respect for staying safe.

It seems like you have to have a close call or a close friend get killed before it sticks in your hard head to slow down and be careful. I have had both. Getting in a hurry and distractions are my biggest problems.

I feed alone at night allot too. I'm pretty careful on the tractors with hay, but have gotten way to lax using the bale bed which I feed with 95% of the time. With 2 rolls the back roll is always in a bad spot when closing gates. I never realize it until I'm under it. Sorry for the loss.

I'm sorry for your loss.

I've tried to understand this. At first, I thought it was just a freak accident, but as I read on, it seems a little more common and something one has to be careful about. Is it something related to getting rolls in a certain type of feeder? That may seem like a strange question, but I've never been under a roll or had a reason to be. I have a front loader too. What causes this kind of accident?

My guess would be raising the bale high enough to see under it instead of over it. Maybe raise the bale to see a gate or feed ring and then get out and have forks slightly tilted down and bale slides off. I checked this thread today because I was hurry to get out and shut a gate today so a group of heifers wouldn't get in with the cows and walked under a bale on the bale bed that could have fallen on me if a hydraulic line busted. Not very likely to happen but you just never know.

I had a brief chat with my friend's brother......The hay barn is big.....no windows or skylights. He stored the rolls 3 high.
In a portion of the barn were stored a group of small square bales which my friend was pulling out a few. With him working in the semi-darkness, he didn't notice that a small square bale was a wedge under 1 large round roll. Gravity didn't miss the opportunity and we can only hope it was a quick end.
He had been considering selling out a few months ago, but the low $$ on culls had him reluctant to just let them go. So It wasn't a hydraulic failure or a mis-balanced load, just not being able to see where he was working.

I don't do big bales, do small bales. I'm scared to death getting them off the stack. I've fallen off a couple times, but thankfully from a low height. Was using a pole and somehow it got caught under a falling bale, hit the ground and smacked me in the femur pretty good. Thankfully it just bruised, but if it had hit my head (or nuts) it would have caused all sorts of trouble. I've gotten more careful as I've "matured" but we all still get in a hurry and do stupid stuff.

Last year a woman I know was out doing small bales when the stack fell on her. Broke the tibia/fibula really well to the point of her needing a external fixator. She didn't have her phone, and was lucky to get out from underneath. Thinking about that story scared me half to death.