Posted by NCWayne on August 12, 2012 at 00:00:50 from (69.40.232.132):
In Reply to: farm safety? posted by jon f mn on August 11, 2012 at 12:05:29:
It's not just farm safety, it's safety in general. You always hear about complaciency getting you, but it often has nothing to do with complaciency, and everything to do with the simple fact that NOTHING is perfect, and ANYTHING can happen because of that, no matter how careful you are. I've always heard there is no such thing as an accident but anyone that believes that must believe in a perfect world where nothing ever wears out, or goes wrong without someone knowing about, and repairing it immediately.
My closest call happened putting the undercarriage on a D9G back together about 4 years ago. The way the machine was setting there was no getting a serviced truck to the right side of it to set the track frame. The only thing around big enough to set where you had to set, and pick the weight, was the customers 345 CAT excavator. So, we used it with him operating. He's a lifelong equipment operator so it's not like him to screw up.
Had the track frame almost in place but it was hitting on the hardbar. We had taken the tension off of the picking lines so I could safetly get between the frame and the side of the machine to give the jack holding the hard bar up a few more strokes when we saw what was holding things up. From there it took me a couple of minutes to get in place, see exactly how much movent was needed, and give the jack about two strokes. On the third stroke I heard something pop. Don't know why, but instinct told me to get out of there FAST.... so I commenced to moving backwards as fast as I could. In maybe half a second I was about 5 feet from the end of the frame, and still moving, when the frame jumped straight up about 6 feet, swung and slammed into the side of the machine about three times and then dropped down and hung there about 2 feet off the ground. Standing there watching it happened it seemed like an eternity, but it probably all happened in less than 3 seconds.
I finally stopped and looked around to see my Dad about 20 feet behind me, as he too took off running when he saw the frame jump, and the customer setting in the machine with his hands thrown up in the air and a stunned look on his face.
Seeing 11,000 lbs jump and hit a 30,000 piece right where my head was a few seconds before scared the crap out of me to the point I just had to set down and collect my wits for a few minutes.
At the time no one knew what exactly happend. The customer thought MAYBE his coat had caught on the control lever causing the boom to raise up and cause the frame to jump, and as close as it came to killing me it scared the crap out of him too. We didn't find out the real cause of the problem until several weeks later.
Several days after the accident the 345 started acting up a little on the boom controls and kept getting progressivly worse. Turns out the pilot valve (the one the lever operates) had started leaking by just a little bit. At the time of the accident no one knew anything was wrong because it wasn't leaking enough by to cause any unwanted movement when loading, etc with it. With it just sitting there holding a load, it had time to leak enough pressure by to start moving the main spool and putting pressure on the bottom of the boom trying to raise it. With the track frame in a bind, when I hit that third stroke on the jack it came unbound and it was like unleashing a stretched rubber band and letting it snap. In this case the stretch equalled about 2 feet, and so was hard enough to pick up the frame like it did.
Like I said, no matter how careful you are when you work around dangerous machines your always just seconds from being seriously injured or killed, no matter now careful you try to be, because it's not all about being careful. Being careful can do nothing but lessen the chance of getting hurt, it can never make it go completely away....
So, think smart, be safe, and most importantly, make sure your wife has a good insurance policy on you to make sure she is taken care of if the odds ever catch up with you.
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