Farmer crushed under corn planter while changing flat tire -- Iowa.

Details

• Personal Author:
  Johnson, Wayne ; Rautiainen, Risto
• Corporate Authors:
  Iowa Fatality Assessment & Control Evaluation Program (Iowa FACE) ; University of Iowa. College of Medicine. Institute for Rural and Environmental Health
• Description:
  A 55-year-old farmer died while changing a tire on a planter. The man had been planting corn earlier in the day without problems, however, when moving the planter to another field, he noticed that the second road tire on the right side of the planter was flat. He stopped in a pasture and began to change the tire. He did not brace up the planter, nor use the mechanical safety catch adjacent to the hydraulic cylinder, which is designed to keep the cylinder extended during maintenance. He crawled under the planter and loosened the bolts on the wheel, but could not get it off. Then he tried to relieve ground pressure on the flat wheel by loosening the hydraulic fitting connected to the wheel hydraulic cylinder. He was obviously not aware that the hydraulic lines to both wheel cylinders were connected. He expected the outside wheel cylinder on that side of the planter to hold the machine up while he relieved ground pressure on the inside wheel. However when the hydraulic line fitting was off, hydraulic fluid immediately gushed out and the entire right side of the planter fell on the victim causing a fatal head injury. The man was killed instantly, but was not discovered until the next day by an employee of his farm. Recommendations following our investigation are: 1. Equipment parts supported by hydraulic systems must be mechanically blocked against motion during maintenance and service. 2. Hydraulic pressure must be relieved before working on any part of the hydraulic system.
• Content Notes:
  Publication Date provided by FACE program
  
  not printed on the report.
  
  
• Subjects:
  Accident Prevention Accidents Accidents, Occupational Agriculture Farmers Occupational Health Personal Protective Equipment Safety Safety Management Workplace
• Keywords:
  Accident-analysis Accident-prevention Agricultural-industry Agricultural-machinery Agricultural-workers Equipment-operators Equipment-reliability Injuries Injury-prevention OSHA Region 7 Personal-protection Protective-measures Safety-education Safety-equipment Safety-measures Safety-monitoring Traumatic-injuries Work-analysis Work-areas Work-operations Work-performance Work-practices

  More +
• FACE - NIOSH and State:
  FACE ; Agriculture ; Machine (All) ; Machine - Farming
• Series:
  Fatality Assessment and Control Evaluation Reports (FACE)
• Subseries:
  State
• DOI:
  https://doi.org/10.26616/NIOSHSFACE96IA041
• 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:
  4 pdf pages
• NIOSHTIC Number:
  nn:20028259
• NTIS Accession Number:
  PB2007-108691
• 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 96IA041, 1997 Feb ; :1-4
• Federal Fiscal Year:
  1997
• 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-512:69b9b2917aeb0cc86120085b553eccee7b0aa6f47fdc0723cd6179592527eacdbd72995febe85a7513a5e88e3bbd5be18b545974e0ff372f58abfed10e3ee731
• Download URL:
  https://stacks.cdc.gov/view/cdc/166825/cdc_166825_DS1.pdf
• File Type:
  [PDF - 20.71 KB ]