Teenager Dies in Tractor Overturn When Home-Made Rollbar Fails

Details

• Personal Author:
  Johnson, Wayne ; Rautiainen, Risto
• Corporate Authors:
  Iowa Fatality Assessment & Control Evaluation Program (Iowa FACE) ; University of Iowa. College of Public Health. Department of Occupational and Environmental Health
• Description:
  During the summer of 2003, a 14- year-old boy died while helping his grandfather clear farmland of fence posts. The boy was operating a utility tractor equipped with a homemade rollbar and seatbelt. They had successfully removed several posts using the tractor's three-point hitch lift arms, but encountered a post that wouldn't budge. The grandfather switched to another method to pull posts using the rear wheel, something he had learned from his father many years ago. They backed up the tractor into position, adjacent to the 6-inch (15 cm) diameter wooden fence post. The tractor was facing up a slight slope. An old chain with 1/4 inch (6 mm) links was secured to the bottom of the post and the other end was looped around the rear tire. Normally, as the wheel would turn, it would pull the post upward and forward. The boy had the tractor in first gear, with throttle applied. As he released the clutch, the post, buried 4 feet (1.2 m) deep in dry ground, did not move, but the tractor's front end jumped upward. The grandfather yelled, but the boy had no time to react, and the tractor rolled completely over backwards. The self-made rollbar was sturdy and did not break or bend, but large pieces of the axle housing snapped off from both sides as the rollbar collapsed. The boy was instantly crushed underneath. The tractor had been previously used for city maintenance, and originally had a two-post factory-installed Roll-Over Protective Structure (ROPS). The tractor was sold through an auction and was bought by the family without this ROPS. The original mounting brackets were still in place, but the long bolts connecting the top and bottom brackets were missing. The new rollbar was welded to the existing top bracket, which was bolted only to the topmounting base of the cast iron axle housing. Without the long bolts between the top and bottom brackets, this installation did not provide adequate strength for the rollbar attachment to the axle, and the axle housings broke, making the rollbar ineffective. Recommendations based on our investigation are as follows: 1. Factory installed Roll-Over Protective Structures (ROPS) should not be removed from tractors. 2. Non-ROPS tractors should be retrofitted with approved ROPS
  
  otherwise, they should be recycled, or retired to stationary power source use. 3. Self-made rollbars are not recommended, as they may not provide adequate structural strength in an overturn. 4. The rear wheel of a tractor should not be used to pull posts from the ground. 5. Youth under 16 years of age should not operate tractors, unless they have received tractor operator training.
  
  
• Subjects:
  Accident Prevention Accidents Accidents, Occupational Age Factors Agriculture Farmers Occupational Health Personal Protective Equipment Safety Safety Management Staff Development Workplace

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• Keywords:
  Accident-analysis Accident-prevention Age-factors Agricultural-industry Agricultural-machinery Agricultural-processes Agricultural-workers Children Equipment-design Equipment-operators Equipment-reliability Injuries Injury-prevention OSHA Region 7 Personal-protective-equipment Protective-equipment Protective-measures Safety-belts Safety-education Safety-equipment Safety-measures Safety-monitoring Tractors Training Traumatic-injuries Work-analysis Work-areas Work-operations Work-performance Work-practices

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• FACE - NIOSH and State:
  FACE ; Agriculture ; Machine (All) ; Machine - Farming ; Youth ; Youth Agriculture
• Series:
  Fatality Assessment and Control Evaluation Reports (FACE)
• Subseries:
  State
• DOI:
  https://doi.org/10.26616/NIOSHSFACE03IA020
• Publisher:
  National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health
• Document Type:
  Text
• Funding:
  Cooperative Agreement
• Genre:
  Field Study
• Place as Subject:
  Iowa ; OSHA Region 7
• CIO:
  National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH)
• Topic:
  Workplace Safety & Health
• Location:
  North America
• Pages in Document:
  9 pdf pages
• NIOSHTIC Number:
  nn:20028349
• NTIS Accession Number:
  PB2007-108686
• Citation:
  Morgantown, WV: U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Public Health Service, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health, FACE 03IA020, 2003 Oct ; :1-8
• Federal Fiscal Year:
  2004
• Performing Organization:
  Iowa Department of Public Health
• Peer Reviewed:
  False
• NAICS and SIC Codes:
  11 - Agriculture, Forestry, Fishing and Hunting - (NAICS)
• Start Date:
  1992/09/30
• End Date:
  2006/08/31
• Collection(s):
  National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health
• Main Document Checksum:
  urn:sha-512:bb9a6cb3266e2e1c8850233657939a066342b344d6721a54f4a2bd536dcc0b1201f5c185cde090d86ee02b1ed961bc7497805e7ceb8269049cc4788efeec05e7
• Download URL:
  https://stacks.cdc.gov/view/cdc/166770/cdc_166770_DS1.pdf
• File Type:
  [PDF - 701.66 KB ]