By DAVE BLOWER JR.
Farm World Editor

INDIANAPOLIS, Ind. — As harvest time gets pinched between the maturity of late-planted fields and autumn’s first frost, Purdue University’s Agricultural Safety and Health Program cautions farmers to avoid becoming a 2009 statistic.

The warning is getting louder as a positive trend has turned negative for the past two years. Purdue recorded 28 farm-related fatalities in 2008, which is up from last year’s total of 24 deaths. Both years bucked a 30-year trend of fewer deaths due to farm-related work.

“Two years ago (2006) we were down to eight deaths, and three years ago was the first time on record that we didn’t record one child death on the farm,” said Dr. Bill Field, a Purdue professor who compiles the annual report. “We had a little celebration after that report.”

In 2006, the eight deaths were exactly half of the previously recorded low. So far, there have been 10 deaths on Indiana farms in 2009.

And, as Purdue professor and report coordinator Dr. Gail Deboy warned, Hoosier farmers are in the most dangerous season of the year. He said there were 11 deaths on Indiana farms in September and October of 2008.

“In 2008, farmers were working too many hours in the fields during harvest because the fall was so wet,” Deboy recalled. “They were working too quick, and they were working too long. That’s a bad combination. We want people to be careful because – with the late planting this spring – we could be in a similar situation this year.”
The complete Purdue report can be found online at http://cobweb.ecn.purdue.edu/~agsafety/IRSHC/fatalitySummary.html

The average age of farm-work-related fatality victims was 49.4 in 2008, which is down from the 10-year average of 52.6. Only two children, ages 3 and 4, were killed during a farm accident last year. Victims age 60 and older accounted for 39 percent of all cases.

No identifiable pattern
Field, who has been collecting this data since 1977, said finding reports of farm work-related deaths is difficult.

“There’s no requirement to report any injuries on the farm – or even a death – but there is at other places of work,” he explained.
According to the National Safety Council, there are 3.5 deaths per 100,000 workers across all industries in the United States. For agriculture, though, the numbers are much worse: 31.6 fatalities per 100,000 farm workers.

The Purdue report cited five deaths from Hoosier farmers being crushed by hydraulic machinery; eight deaths from tractor rollovers, and three deaths occurred on roadways involving large-farm equipment. In all, the 28 deaths were divided into 15 different statistical categories.

“I can’t define any pattern,” Field lamented.

“People are dying on farms in an infinite amount of ways.
There’s no clear pattern, so it’s hard to design a program that would help educate farmers.”

He said some safety-oriented programs have a proven success record. Field cited work with Indiana’s Amish communities as an example.

In 1996, one-third of the state’s on-farm deaths involved Amish families. Purdue researchers in 2002 documented 203 farm-related injuries and 14 deaths on Amish farms in the United States and Canada. Many of these deaths involved children under the age of 18.

In the past 10 years, Field said, the Purdue Extension has facilitated more than 20 farm family safety days – drawing thousands from Amish communities. As a result, there was only one Amish death on the 2008 report.

“(The Amish community) really bought into this,” Field reported.
“When we would call a meeting in an Amish community, we would get 100 percent attendance. We were very impressed with how they responded to this.”

Non-fatal injuries
Purdue estimated that one in nine Indiana farms annually experience a farm-related injury that requires medical attention. The report stated that with an average cost of $1,200 per medical treatment, on-farm injuries cost Hoosier farmers more than $8 million in 2008.

Of all non-fatal incidents, at least five victims had to be airlifted to regional trauma centers and were listed in either critical of serious condition, Purdue said.

Many of these non-fatal incidents resulted in disabling conditions such as paralysis from spinal cord injury, leg amputations and brain trauma.

In the past, these may have been fatal injuries, the report said, but advancements in rural emergency medical services have improved.

All of the known non-fatal accident victims in 2008 were men – three were teenagers.

Deboy said farmers work with large livestock and farm equipment on a daily basis. Farmers can become too comfortable working with these potential dangers and forget about proper safety precautions.

“Most farmers don’t spend much time thinking about safety, and we hope this report helps create more of an awareness in the farming community – especially right before harvest,” Deboy concluded.