Aaron
Well-known member
Hopefully this will remind some of the older folks on here to stay sharp, and for the younger ones to give their parents/in-laws/etc. a tongue lashing when they do something potentially dangerous on the farm.
It's 2:00 a.m. right now. Just got in from checking cows after getting back from the hospital. At about 3:00 PM yesterday, my father flipped a round bale onto himself while feeding hay. While attempting to retrieve a bale for the back forks on the tractor in soft clay, Dad inadvertently grabbed the controls for the loader to steady himself while looking backwards when backing into the bale. Pulling back on the two hydraulic loader levers causes the loader to lift and tilt up the forks until gravity takes over.
The front bale hit him in the chest and rolled over him, pressing his spine into the metal edge of the tractor seat.
The end result is a crushed vertebra, both anterior and posterior, somewhere in the middle of his spine along with a mild concussion and a whole lot of bruised and torn muscles.
He is to be airlifted to Thunder Bay, ON and have possibly have surgery (suggested 9 hours) on Wednesday to insert metal rods.
I figured this would happen eventually, even though I have yelled at and warned him every time he would start lifting a bale too high. Complacency and repetitiveness is the killer in this industry.
Needless to say, at 66, his farming days are now over, and he is bloody lucky to be alive and/or not paralyzed for doing something so stupid and avoidable.
It's 2:00 a.m. right now. Just got in from checking cows after getting back from the hospital. At about 3:00 PM yesterday, my father flipped a round bale onto himself while feeding hay. While attempting to retrieve a bale for the back forks on the tractor in soft clay, Dad inadvertently grabbed the controls for the loader to steady himself while looking backwards when backing into the bale. Pulling back on the two hydraulic loader levers causes the loader to lift and tilt up the forks until gravity takes over.
The front bale hit him in the chest and rolled over him, pressing his spine into the metal edge of the tractor seat.
The end result is a crushed vertebra, both anterior and posterior, somewhere in the middle of his spine along with a mild concussion and a whole lot of bruised and torn muscles.
He is to be airlifted to Thunder Bay, ON and have possibly have surgery (suggested 9 hours) on Wednesday to insert metal rods.
I figured this would happen eventually, even though I have yelled at and warned him every time he would start lifting a bale too high. Complacency and repetitiveness is the killer in this industry.
Needless to say, at 66, his farming days are now over, and he is bloody lucky to be alive and/or not paralyzed for doing something so stupid and avoidable.
