# Sad loss involving Bale Bandit



## slowzuki (Mar 8, 2011)

http://www.delawareonline.com/story/news/local/2016/07/09/man-dies-when-son-activates-farm-equipment-near-laurel/86892682/

What a terrible accident, I can't imagine how the son feels.

Paste for those that can't make the link work:

LOCAL
Man dies when son activates farm equipment near Laurel

Esteban Parra, The News Journal

Ivan Bliznetsov, Getty Images/iStockphoto
A 61-year-old Maryland man was killed Friday when his son turned on a bale packaging machine in a field near Laurel Friday.
A 61-year-old Maryland man was killed when his son turned on a bale packaging machine in a field outside Laurel, state police said Saturday.

The incident occurred at about 2:30 p.m. Friday as a Parsonsburg, Maryland, man was operating a tractor in a field located near 11244 Whitesville Road. The tractor had a square baler attached to it, said Master Cpl. Gary Fournier, a state police spokesman.
Attached behind the square baler was a Bale Bandit, a large piece of equipment that bands 20 bales together before discharging them as a single block onto the ground behind the machine.
When the man encountered an error with the Bale Bandit, he called upon his 27-year-old son to help fix it, Fournier said.

After clearing bales from the machine, the son informed his father he was going to activate the machine to reset it. As the son walked to the tractor to do this, his father took a seat on a nearby bale of straw.
When the son entered the tractor and activated the machine, he heard a scream and turned to see his father trapped inside the Bale Bandit.
"The investigation suggests the father possibly observed a broken band inside the machine and was attempting to remove it when the machine was activated, Fournier said. "He was pronounced dead at the scene from multiple traumatic injuries."
The name of the victim will not be released as is state police practice when investigating these types of industrial incidents, Fournier said.

There are no signs of foul play and detectives are continuing their investigation.
The body was turned over to the Delaware Division of Forensic Science.


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## Three44s (May 21, 2016)

That story really makes your blood run cold!

The thing is that according to the son, his father took up a safe position and by sitting down ..... to me signalled that he was going to remain there for a bit of time.

A lot of people are impetuous and will jump at things, we don't ordinarily think of a man of 61 years will act like that but it happens and it likely happened in this case.

This story also goes to show us how it's very hard to be too careful.

And yes, the son in this tragedy deserves our thoughts and prayers along with the rest of the family.

Sad loss

Three 44s


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## hillside hay (Feb 4, 2013)

Wow. Thats horrific.


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## Gearclash (Nov 25, 2010)

Tragic incident!

Please be careful out there. Two weeks ago today a 65 year old neighbor lost his life when his ATV and towed sprayer rolled into a road ditch and pinned him under it.


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## swmnhay (Jun 13, 2008)

Wow,that's terrible.Prayers to all involved.

Careful out there guys,farming is a dangerous occupation.


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## somedevildawg (Jun 20, 2011)

Just can't even understand how it could happen like that......sad


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## TJH (Mar 23, 2014)

Could not read the article for the pop ups they would't clear off.


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## JD3430 (Jan 1, 2012)

TJH said:


> Could not read the article for the pop ups they would't clear off.


I couldn't either. Laurel MD is very close to me. 
I will look up the story elsewhere.
I almost don't want my son to help me. Sometimes I think its not worth the risk


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## Swv.farmer (Jan 2, 2016)

Verry sad. And now the worst part is that the son is the one who has to live with the tragedy of the accident.


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## slowzuki (Mar 8, 2011)

I'll see if I can copy it, some got around my pop-up blocker too.



TJH said:


> Could not read the article for the pop ups they would't clear off.


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## SVFHAY (Dec 5, 2008)

Terrible, tragic. Can't Imagine the sons state of mind after this. I work with elderly father daily. He lives to be on the farm and I fear the farm getting him.


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## Bruce Hopf (Jun 29, 2016)

It is sad. About 20, 25 years ago, or so, a friend of my family, was going to town, to do some business. On his way, he drove past a field, where a 19 year old boy was round baling. He noticed the tractor sitting, running, and the baler, was in gear. 
Not thinking anything of it, he kept on driving, to town. An hour, or so, he drove past the field, and noticed the tractor, and round baler, still running. He stopped, to find the young man, inside the Baler, called 911, 
The rescuers got the boy out, of the baler, but it was too late, for the young man, as he had died,from the injuries, he had sustained, from being pulled, into the Baler. 
To this day, the friend of my family, blames himself, for not stopping, when he first noticed the tractor, and baler, sitting in the field, he figures if he would have stopped, he might have made a difference, and might have been able, to get the young man help, in time. Very sad.


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## Vol (Jul 5, 2009)

I never knew all of the details as that never was revealed to me, but a college friend, whose family operated a dairy, was backing a load of silage into a pit and the silage load and open station tractor ended upside down in the pit. This boy was very large and the tractor pinned him down face first in the silage and suffocated him. Coroner said his lungs were filled with silage where he fought to get out. 
I cried many times over his passing. It can happen.

Regards, Mike


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## Tater Salad (Jan 31, 2016)

Friends of mine....thats why I haven't been on here....we had to finish thier straw.....just sad fella's .....no words.....


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## Wethay (Jul 17, 2015)

A month or so ago I helped get a recently widowed ladies hay in. Her, now late, husband rolled the tractor.


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## slowzuki (Mar 8, 2011)

Sorry for your loss Tater. That's good of you guys to help out the family.

A friend of mines family lost their 14 year old daughter in the dairy barn in a farm accident in 1994 or so, the father sold his quota and moved the family off the farm shortly after. You never really fully recover from something like that.


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## RockyHill (Apr 24, 2013)

Tater Salad said:


> Friends of mine....thats why I haven't been on here....we had to finish thier straw.....just sad fella's .....no words.....


So sorry for your loss as well as the family. It had to be tough finishing. No words is right.

Prayers from Jeff & Shelia


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## Tater Salad (Jan 31, 2016)

The Mushroom growers in PA (which is where the straw was headed) after offering condolences, wanted to ensure their shipment would be on time.....disgusting......I wanted to spray Headline on the bales !!!!! Good old line Farm Family.....what a loss


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## Tater Salad (Jan 31, 2016)

Wethay said:


> A month or so ago I helped get a recently widowed ladies hay in. Her, now late, husband rolled the tractor.


Must have been 20 accumalator/bale rigs show up........NO ONE said a word....just got it done


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## Wethay (Jul 17, 2015)

Sorry for the lost to and others. May you continue to heal. That's the way neighbors used to be, and still are in places. The way it should be.


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## Hayman1 (Jul 6, 2013)

Tater- sorry for your loss and that of the family and locality. This sort of event really shakes a neighborhood to its roots.

Farming is a very dangerous business and each of us is always one step removed from disaster. Some call it luck, some divine providence others competence on the part of the farmer; I suppose that I think it is a miraculous combination of all three.

Watched my wife of less than a year driving raking the other day. She is very careful, new to larger tractor work and was going too fast down a hill. I jumped out of the tractor and ran over to her to ask what was going on and tell her to slow down. Seems like she hit the clutch and was free rolling and kind of panicked a bit and had one rear wheel slightly off the ground. Lost some months on that one. You never know, you can't tell someone everything they need to know (besides they would forget it anyway). Guess you have to have faith that most of the time, things are going to work out if you do your best.

I personally have walked away from a vehicle accident that no one who saw the car can believe that I lived let alone did not get hurt, almost blew myself up burning fence clearing debris with gas that someone put in the kerosene can, and almost got eaten by a corn picker when doing harvest at research plots. I consider myself very lucky, fortunate, and blessed to still be in one piece at 69. I thank the good Lord every day.


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## Thorim (Jan 19, 2015)

My condolence to the family in such a tragic accident.


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## Thorim (Jan 19, 2015)

Hayman1 said:


> Tater- sorry for your loss and that of the family and locality. This sort of event really shakes a neighborhood to its roots.
> 
> Farming is a very dangerous business and each of us is always one step removed from disaster. Some call it luck, some divine providence others competence on the part of the farmer; I suppose that I think it is a miraculous combination of all three.
> 
> ...


I can appreciate your brushes with death, when I 17 i ran my Honda M.T. 250 enduro motorcycle off a road that had a 90 degree turn in it into a huge cotton wood tree couldn't enough undamaged parts for even salvage. I walked away with a torn pair of pants. Later in life I rolled a semi hauling propane and welding gases, skidded it on its side for almost 300 yards and sheared off two utility poles. took a good size bone chip out of the top of my head required fourteen staple to close. fractured the tip of my collar bone, slight separation in if I remember correctly the 3rd a d 4th neck vertebrae plus lots of bruises and scraps,the roof of the tractor was crushed down to the passenger seat and the drivers side portion was slightly tented up God was with me both times..... and no I wasn't wearing a seat belt when I rolled the semi and I normally do


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## Vol (Jul 5, 2009)

Tater Salad said:


> Friends of mine....thats why I haven't been on here....we had to finish thier straw.....just sad fella's .....no words.....


Glad you helped them out at this time Tater....that's what men do.

Best Regards, Mike


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## 8350HiTech (Jul 26, 2013)

Earlier this week we lost a local man (whom I didn't know) in a combine accident. It's a hard way to remind everyone else to be safe but hopefully people can take that away from such tragedies.


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## somedevildawg (Jun 20, 2011)

Sorry to hear of the loss of your friends and neighbors Tater.......if they set up some kinda fund for the family please forward to us. Be careful guys and gals, trouble and the grim reaper is around every corner and on every roadway.......


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## Tater Salad (Jan 31, 2016)

somedevildawg said:


> Sorry to hear of the loss of your friends and neighbors Tater.......if they set up some kinda fund for the family please forward to us. Be careful guys and gals, trouble and the grim reaper is around every corner and on every roadway.......


We're in the process...3 banks have stepped up to set it up....The Son is his Dad rhrough and through....We Pray to Our Lord he can gain strenghth from God and continue the farm.(it's no rinky dink operation)...too soon ya know? Bigger picture at hand......and you're right , We are ALL good at what we do....TOO good , and we skip the fundementals somerimes.


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## FarmerCline (Oct 12, 2011)

Sorry to hear of the tragic loss of your friend tater. I can't imagine how the son must feel.....may God give him strength and comfort through this time. Very honorable of you and the other neighbors/friends to step in and finish the straw for the family.


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## stack em up (Mar 7, 2013)

That is just horrific to read. We all get lax around machinery from time to time, and that's when it comes back to bite us. May God grant his family peace during these troubling times.


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## Three44s (May 21, 2016)

I think that the two biggest contributors to accidents are complacency and lack of thorough training.

The complacency issue affects all of us ...... not one of this forum's members are immune to it ....... you think you are fully in control but we are not.

Just a moments lapse in judgement and there are reprocussions.

Not thoroughly understanding a machine can certainly get one in a lot of trouble. It's real hard to convey common sense knowledge to someone just starting out. It is nearly impossible to think of everything or read a person's mind that you are starting out on a piece of equipment that's foreign to them and cover all the necessary bases completely. And as one poster mentioned a family member was rolling down a hill with a piece of farm equipment with the clutch depressed.

You can take a person that's green on a class of machinery and only teach them just so much in a relatively short period of time and those natural survival instincts, the thing many of us early in life starters take for granted ........... nearly instinctive responses as if they come from our gut ........ mainly because they likely do arise there ......... and have a person of limited experience and training ...... never really acquire them.

There is very little substitute for skills and training acquired over a very long time from repeated exposure to challenges.

I have lived on hills all of my life and started driving in open fields at age 9 with an 8n Ford tractor and a Willies jeep with no brakes and the notion of not re-enaging the clutch is completely foreign to me yet I could see my wife for example freezing in that very senario even though she's had a lot of experience with tractors as a young adult and also growing up in John Day Ore. on her uncle's ranch! No hills in his hay ground to speak of, mostly flat valley floor hay fields.

But I can feel complacency regularily and have to fight that trap!

Best regards

Three 44s


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## Tater Salad (Jan 31, 2016)

I'm gonna print this "thread" off and give it to him when the time is right....I think it will show him #1 people all over care and #2 this can easily happen to the most seasoned operators....Our state is the size of most of ya'lls counties , this kinda thing hits hard....even if you don't know them personally , you know OF them.......tough , tough


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## RuttedField (Apr 24, 2016)

I have been praying for healing for the Son, as I know the guilt must be so deep within him, and of course for the other family members as well. And yes, you as well Tate.

Loss is hard and I experienced the loss of my own 19 year old sister in an accident so its with empathy and not merely sympathy that I relate.

Farming is a lifestyle and not just an occupation; we all know that and we do care about one another.


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## RuttedField (Apr 24, 2016)

Sometimes I am not sure people understand how Online Forums like this really work. Friendships are formed though people do not always meet in person simply because this is like a true bricks and mortar feed store.

Like a real store, where people might come in and sit down upon a few bags of grain with coffee cups in hand and chat about the weather, the price of hay, or how to mend a busted PTO shaft, we do the same thing here online. And just as you have the regulars who might be retired and spend more time in the store, you might have others that do not say anything at all (lurkers), while yet the majority of the people come in, chat when they can, and are back out the door doing things about the farm. Just as some in a real feed store might be hobby farmers, others might be the biggest farmers in town, and every personality type is represented.

It is all good, and its really just summed up in the word "community".

So when something like this happens; yes we do collectively care...immensely and we realize how vulnerable we are to farm accidents.

Again prayers are going out to those affected...


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## Coondle (Aug 28, 2013)

My heart goes out to the family and in particular to the son. I cannot even begin to imagine the terrible place he is in in his mind. He will never get rid of the memory but God willing the son will be able to cope and with support from folks like Tater there is a chance. Family and friends will need to keep a lookout for him for many years, especially on birthdays, Christmas, Thanksgiving and the anniversary of the sad sad loss.


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## atgreene (May 19, 2013)

So sorry.


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## luke strawwalker (Jul 31, 2014)

Yeah, it's a dangerous business. There's often very little or no warning, and second chances are rare. Fate is often unkind.

It's not always lack of training or complacency. Sometimes the unexpected happens even to the best of us. When I was still row cropping, one day I was working on the cotton picker-- had a fuel line problem and was loosening up the gasoline line from the fuel pump to the carburator and the wrench hit the battery post and sparked like mad before I knocked it loose... right before the gas started dribbling everywhere! Had lightning strike twice within a week during picking season-- one day I had my arms through the side frames and ballast springs of the picker, removing the blower drive PTO box from the side of the transmission when lightning struck just up the road and electrified the machine and shocked the snot out of me... basically knocked me back from the machine! The second time I had just dumped a load of cotton on the trailer and tarped it before the approaching thunderstorm hit, and when I climbed out of the trailer part of the tarp blew loose, so I reached in through the 2x4 wire sides and was pulling the tarp back down when lightning struck up the road and electrified the trailer, and zapped me again.

Year before last, during harvest, my BIL's dad, who's 90 now, was out "helping" as I was putting corn in the bin. BIL said to watch him like a hawk, don't let climb the bin, etc. Well, I was running grain into the bin with the auger and cleaner out of twin gravity wagons behind the 2290, and shoveling fines out from under the cleaner with a corn scoop, and periodically making runs up to the barn with a wheelbarrow full of fines that we were spreading on the floor of the barn to dry out for chicken feed. I was coming out of the barn with an empty wheelbarrow once when I saw Pops down by the cleaner, which was running at 540 rpm on the back of the tractor, and he was fiddling with the idler on the chain turning the cleaner drum WHILE IT WAS RUNNING. I was kinda holding my breath as I quickly made my way the 50 yards back down there from the barn, hoping I wouldn't be dealing with an entanglement... luckily he decided it was okay and quit fiddling with it before he lost his fingers or his life. On another run to the barn, I came out to see him on the ladder at the top of the bin fiddling around.

One time I had pulled up to the bin and was putting in corn, and I'd already run the first wagon into the bin and had the swing-away under the second wagon, which was about 99% empty. Wet corn was sticking up in the corners of the wagon, though, and I'd grabbed a long 2x4 out of the barn and had opened up the gravity box door all the way, and had reached up inside the box with the 2x4 to scrape the corn down out of the corners. Suddenly I felt the wagon lurch under me (I was halfway in the door) and I instantly ducked back out and leaped backwards about 3 feet... (not a small feat for a 350 pound guy, but I've done it before... one time Keira puked out my pickup window when I was standing beside it, and I jumped back about 3 feet before it hit the ground, to keep from getting puked on... Betty was awestruck that I could move that fast and nimbly BACKWARDS! LOL Grandpa had crawled up in the 2290 and decided to "help" by pulling the wagons forward away from the bin. I was hollering at him to stop, as he ran over the swing-away auger with the rear tire of the wagon and flipped the running swing away over, knocking the cleaner over in the process, before he saw the rear wagon rare up from running over the swing-away and seeing me screaming and waving at him from a few feet away and FINALLY stopping. Had to clean up that mess but fortunately nobody was hurt. Thankfully he stays in the house most of the time, when he's not running his little Mule in circles around the combine and auger cart and trucks... (something else to have to watch out for and dodge...)

Just gotta be careful out there... I've always been safety-conscious, but it doesn't mean stuff can't happen anyway... but carelessness or taking stupid chances is NEVER a good idea. Things are dangerous enough from the unexpected and the unforeseen happenstance or "combination of errors" that suddenly combine in just the *wrong* way to make a bad day. I've managed to keep all ten fingers and ten toes attached, but walk around a farm show sometimes-- you'll see plenty of people who haven't! Did a ride and drive one time with a guy a few years older than I am-- he'd lost an arm...

Later and be careful out there! OL J R


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## TJH (Mar 23, 2014)

Sad loss. Our prayers for this family and young man, this will be a heavy, heavy burden for him for a long time to come. We all have to be very cautious.


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## JD3430 (Jan 1, 2012)

Unfortunately, It will be a heavy burden until he himself passes.
Im still carrying the guilt of my mom dying in my house. Could I have done anything to prolong her life? I ask myself that question every day. It won't go away.
This young man is bearing a burden 100x as great as mine. I pray he can forgive himself. 
I couldn't imagine he will be able to live a normal life??


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## Against the Grain (Apr 12, 2016)

Three44s saidsorry I don't know how to do a quote)
"I think that the two biggest contributors to accidents are complacency and lack of thorough training."

Although that may be true for beginners, I think the real danger for us older critters is "Tiredness". I have caught myself in many dangerous situations that I would not have gotten into in my younger years. Stiffness, pain, eyesight not so good, too many things on my mind. All these things come into play to cause accidents. 
My heart goes out to this family and especially to the son. I know the load of guilt he will probably carry. I pray that he will learn to forgive himself. 
My dad fell off a ladder in '79 and broke his back. I was holding the ladder for him and lived with a huge load of guilt for not catching him when he fell. 
He lived another 35 years but needed wheels after that day. 
Thank God for good neighbors like Tater. They will need you if they are going to continue to farm. The son especially will need a lot of help and encouragement. Good friends and mentors can make a huge difference in this family's future. God bless you! 
Jim


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## BWfarms (Aug 3, 2015)

Don't know how I missed this post. When accidents like this happen it fills me with sorrow. I didn't read any of the follow up replies immediately. I just sat here and thought about the family as if I knew them.


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## OhioHay (Jun 4, 2008)

My heart and prayers go out trouble the family. There are no words for such a loss. Locally, the farming community has been through this more times than I care to reflect on. Fathers, sons, daughters, and wives have all been lost. One slip, one wrong step, one time of being in a hurry and life changes in an instant. Lord willing, I pray for healing for this family and community. Here, many a fallen farmer has been honored by the next crop being planted and harvested and the legacy living on. Be safe out there everyone.


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## Wcbr1025 (May 1, 2015)

I feel so sorry for everyone involved, prayers to all those affected by the tragedy.
It always makes you stop and think about things when you hear news like this.


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