Will I learn before I kill myself?

OR put another way WHY do some have to learn the hard way?
Have been playing with tractors for about 5 years now. (cars for 30 years before that).
Have read the horror stories of accidents and now I am working in a hardware store in a small ag community, I see the guys with mangled or missing digits and limbs almost daily. (these are the lucky guys that weren't killed)
Yet I continue to make those STUPID mistakes. I was playing with my new quick hitch just before dark. I knew I wouldn't have time to install it, I just wanted to see what it would look like installed. I had disconnected the cultivator and decided it would be easier if the link arms were a little higher. So what do I do? Do I mount the tractor sit in the seat and raise the 3 point?
NO WAY. I ALWAYS leave my tractor out of gear and never even have to check it. I walk around to the right in front of the rear tire, reach up and turn the key. Not only had I left it in gear, I had left the throttle advanced as well. (another thing I never do) She roared to life in first gear. I don't think I ever let go of the key but by the time I got her shut down she had moved 15-20 feet and all the time those 13x38 ribs were smacking me in my back. MAN did that feel good...
Better than getting run over I recon...

not much else to say except
Be safe and THINK

Better watch out or you will be one those guys.

I done almost the same thing 3 or 4 years ago. I started my Super C with the crank and it was in 1st gear at 1/3 throttle. Like to ran over me before I got out of the way.

I say we were both lucky.

I almost forgot. A friend of mine was killed 20 years ago when he started his 2510 JD from the ground. It pinned him between the rear tire and an electric pole that was in the middle of a corn field. It gutted him.

Be careful!

Sometimes I suppose we all do stupid things. A couple of years ago I had just got home from a show with my Cub and when I started to unload the battery was weak and it wouldn't start,so I got my jumper box and hooked it up on the starter side and hit the starter,it started instantly and was in reverse, the front axle drug me jumper box and all off the trailer one ofthe ramps fell on my leg and I was pushing against the axle so hard I could hear the gov opening up. My soninlaw was close and saw what was happening and ran and jerked it out of gear. Thank the Lord and my soninlaw I was only Scratched up a little. Made me think more about saftey when fooling with these things.Ed

Few years back, had a neighbor that jumped the starter, with a screwdriver, on an 8630 JD that was in gear.

He managed to jump to safety, but the tractor riped right through the back wall of the shop and into a tree outside.

It's funny now , but no one was laughing for a while back then.

Glad you weren't hurt.

..................Mark

I do it the other way, I ALWAYS leave my tractor in gear, not much guess work that way.

A friend of mine, a lifetime beekeeper, started up his 80+ hp from the ground. It was in gear and knocked him down. He would have been fine if there was not a large harrow hooked to the tractor. Both gangs dug into him. His wife said he lingered for about 4 days and died a very painful death. I think he was about 70.

Thought I was only one that ever did stupid stuff!! Started my W9 standing in front of left rear tire. Forgot I left her in gear when I was working on the hydraulic valve. Not only did she take off in 3rd gear, I attempted to shut her down while walking backwards in front of the rear tire. Got my wits about me and simply let the tractor pass me by, jumped on the drawbar and yanked it out of gear. Nothing happened then but it could have easily gone the other way and pulled me under the tire. It did run over a bucket filled with hydraulic fluid and made a mess in the yard.

Chris B.

A little different story, but maybe it'll help somebody. I had a tree that broke in the wind and fell over and stuck out about 30 feet into a field. The trunk broke about 5 ft. above the ground, and was still hinged at the stump. There was quite a bit of tension on the trunk out toward the end. I started trimming limbs, and everything went great until I hit one that was actually supporting the trunk. Wham! The trunk slammed me to the ground and COULD have caved in my chest. Fortunately, there was a little free space. I could breathe, and I managed to crawl out backwards. The saw was out in front of me. I guess I just dropped it and released the trigger.
I was never real comfortable around chain saws, but had begun to think I knew what I was doing.
'Spect that's the beginning of lots of accidents, or else we just don't think of what MIGHT happen.
Before I touched that tree again, I attached a LONG chain to the trunk and pulled it around with a tractor until I could tell there was no more tension trying to pull that trunk down on anything that might release the pressure.
A source of some awful accidents used to be the PTO shaft, which a lot of people left uncovered because they didn't want to bother attaching the older-type shields. I have never seen this, but I have heard of people whose loose clothes got caught in the PTO shaft. Not hard to imagine what happens. Nowadays, with the PTO guards that are free, I guess there is less chance of getting caught, but I always try to remember that the PTO is a lot stronger than I am. Also, some of the modern fibers don't rip like an old cotton shirt. Just as an example, a one-inch wide strip of the nylon fabric now used to cover old airplanes can lift at least 150 pounds. I don't think our modern clothing fabrics are that heavy, but I'd bet they're pretty strong.

My scary moment came several years ago, while working on my Farmall B. I split the tractor from the tranny and the bell housing. I used the engine stands to support the bell housing and used block under the trany housing. Wanted to get to the coupler to replace the flex piece and bolts, as they were wobbled out. Everything went fine and looked good and strong. Well when i walked to the other side, the whole front of the tractor, mind you that was supported with the engine stands, slide over and pinned me to the wall. I was like oh great, mustered all my strength and pushed it over and let it flop on the ground. In the end, i also had to replace the driveshaft as it got bent.

It's not just tractors. Any powered equipment will do. I hsd a friend lose an arm in a drill press. His sleeve got caught on the side of a large twist drill. Nobody had to ask where the beef was. It was in fragments all over the drill press vise. He couldn't reach the on/off switch after he got sucked in.

I am sure that everybody on this board has had a few close calls. Most people can point to several near fatal incidents in their cars/trucks. If you can make it to 30 years old, you should be OK after that. Two out of ten boys in my eight grade class died in separate auto crashes before age twenty. I doubt if driver education classes help at all.

A few years ago a neighbor got his sweatshirt hoodstring caught in a pto drilling a posthole, ripped his right arm out at the shoulder. He barely survived but is fine now less an arm.

My H is not running yet...but the Ferguson is and it wont start in gear...Lucky me or there I would be.

25 years ago I was sitting on a new Ford tractor, I think a 7000 something, when my instructor asked if I liked it. I said no and that the shifter had a lot of play in it and it was hard to tell what gear you were in. When I showed him by moving it around it jumped in reverse and almost pinned the the other student to the cultivator I was hooking up to before I got to the clutch. YOu couldn't shift that thing with the clutch without grinding but it sure went in gear easy that day. Lucky!

Amen.

The worst of all these in my personal experience is with a fella that took over a caretaker's job (heated house in exchange for taking care of the place, have an outside job if you have the time). He was out on the property cutting firewood and his dog came home without him, causing his wife to call for help.

Near as we (and the sheriff and the coroner) could piece things together, he got his chainsaw stuck in his cut. We found it with the bar unbolted from the motor, both laying next to the stump. Unable to free it, he used the bucket of the Ford Xn to nudge the trunk trying to spring it enough to get his bar back. The trunk snapped and fell back.

What we found was the saw parts laying about the stump with the trunk off to the side, the steering wheel bent, and the tractor out of gas with the tires worn/peeled off with the bucket stuck into the bark of another tree maybe 10-15 yards away. Our friend was laying dead his upper body crushed and sort of flopped and wedged between the seat and the deformed fender, with his lower legs torn off where the tread of the tires caught them.

Sorry for the graphic description. The point is that it is all too easy to over-estimate what all you can or should do with a tractor, and just as easy to under-estimate the dangers.

I came close to killing myself about 5 years ago.
I was cutting tree's down along a fence line and after awhile I didn't even bother looking the whole tree over, I would just notch and cut looking at the base. I notched one and just started to cut on the back when the whole thing came down with allot of noise. What I failed to notice was that the tree was holding up a big river willow about 1 foot in diameter. Only thing that saved me was that it fell away from me. That was the last one I cut that day. Learned a good lesson.

Or this.........