The lathe that took two tractors.

[rabler]

Man, that's scary. It's easy to kill or maim yourself flipping a tractor. I didn't wear the seat belt for the first few months I owned mine because it felt silly wearing a seat belt going 17mph, but after seeing some tractor accidents on tractorbynet, I started using mine. Guys who wear their seat belts and use the ROPS usually don't get hurt. Those that don't, either walk away without a scratch or suffer life altering injury/death; a bit of a crap shoot. Doesn't matter how tough you are, nobody is tough enough to get crushed under a tractor and walk it off.

My father was the medical examiner for our county. I got to assist with the autopsy on someone would tried to use a tractor to pull out a stuck dozer. The tractor flipped on him, pinning him. It was a gasoline tractor, fuel spilled and ignited. His thigh bones were visible. Father noted his time of death was 3 days after the accident.

I have driven tractors most of my life but am a little paranoid about flipping/rolling them.

 

[strantor]

. Father noted his time of death was 3 days after the accident.

I read this last night, it didn't click. Re-read it just now and it did click. That's horrible! Can't believe nobody missed him for 3 days being pinned alive.

 

[rabler]

I read this last night, it didn't click. Re-read it just now and it did click. That's horrible! Can't believe nobody missed him for 3 days being pinned alive.

My recollection is that he was taken to the hospital and died in the burn ward. I was just rather shocked he lived that long given he was burned that bad.

 

[Papa Charlie]

That is a terrible way to go. Can't imagine what he went through while pinned and on fire. OMG.

 

[strantor]

My recollection is that he was taken to the hospital and died in the burn ward. I was just rather shocked he lived that long given he was burned that bad.

Ok, well apparently I still missed the boat. I thought you meant he laid pinned and burned for 3 days before passing, and then was found dead. Regardless, still horrible.

 

[Bi11Hudson]

I disagree that front wheels off the ground is no big deal. It depends why they are off the ground. If in the case of carrying a heavy load on an attachment like @RJSakowski described (carrying firewood) then sure, no big deal; as soon as that attachment hits the ground, that's as far back as it's going to go. But one of the most often fatal tractor accidents is the rear-ward rollover, caused by pulling against something that's attached to the rear of the tractor at a point higher than the axle. The front wheels come off the ground, then they keep going higher, and the ass of the tractor drives up under the nose, and then the whole thing falls backward on top of the operator.

Imagine if that tractor had no ROPS. That dummy would have been squashed like a bug.

I used to think "everybody" knows to couple a load 'below' the axle. I guess with the advent of a hydraulic 3 point, the point of coupling can be raised above the axle hydraulicly on smaller tractors(<50 HP) My bad. . . I'm not a farmer, most of my early experience was around 'rubber tired backhoes'. ie, a Case 555. That tractor didn't exist at the time(late '50s), just a way to convey the concept. My experiences with non-backhoes is with the likes of a FarmAll with tall tires, hence the axle being very high.

My tractor has middlin' sized tires, a 24" rim, I think. Most of my heavy towing is trailers and falls below the axle 'by default' to keep the load level. With a 'jack legged' front end loader, there is more than enough weight forward for ballast. The only time I have had the front end come up was when a box blade catches a root or the like. The answer there is the steering brakes.

A backhoe aft would create a heavy load with the outriggers raised. I have seen drivers with a trailer hitch mounted on the back side of a hoe. They tried to move a load with the boom extended. I'm not talking a 16 ft car toter, more a semi-trailer on a construction site where the truck has gone back for another load. Although it never caused the front end to lift, I consider it just asking for trouble. Plain common sense really isn't that common, I guess.

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