With just 80 acres left to combine in 1992, Ken Dietz turned his thoughts to putting the equipment away for the season and taking in a football game.
“I wasn’t paying attention,” said the Sceptre, Sask., producer.
Dietz, then 36, was moving an auger by hand to one of the last bins to be filled when it struck an overhead power line.
He spent the next nine months in hospital, recovering from burns to 60 percent of his body and amputations to an arm, leg and toes.
Read Also
Saskatchewan RM declines feedlot application, cites bylaws
Already facing some community pushback, a proposed 2,000-head cattle feedlot south of Swift Current, Sask., has been rejected for a municipal permit, partly over zoning concerns about the minimum distance from a residence.
Doctors took muscle from Dietz’s back to speed healing of an exit wound in his head. They also used his healthy tissue to reconstruct his right hand, which now functions just enough to pick up a phone.
He returned to the farm the following year and tackled combining with a hand hook. He moved his young family to a house in town, but continued to operate a cow-calf operation and farm with hired help and through collaborations with neighbours.
He drives a car but no longer operates a truck and relies on his wife to help him.
“It just totally changes your life. I’m not totally independent.”
Earlier this month, a Saskatchewan man died and two others were injured in similar encounters with power lines.
A 55-year-old Melfort man died after the steel grain bin he was unloading struck a line on a Pleasantdale farm.
At Glidden, three men were towing a steel grain bin down a road when it contacted a power line and pulled the line from four poles. No names had been released at press time.
The driver received a shock after jumping from the tractor, while a second man in a pickup truck behind the bin was also shocked after leaving his vehicle. A third man in a separate vehicle alerted police and Sask Power.
Contact with overhead power lines is one of the leading causes of farm accidents, said Larry Christie of Sask Power, who called farming a dangerous occupation.
“It’s just a tragedy that these things happen. These are just avoidable situations,” he said.
Nine people died and 122 others were injured in accidents involving Sask Power equipment between 1997 and 2006.
Christie said fatigue and stress can cause farmers to sidestep their focus on safety.
Through its ongoing safety campaigns, Sask Power advises farmers to be aware of the locations of the lines and electrical sources, to maintain a safe distance from such lines and to remain alert.
If involved in an electrical accident, farmers should stay in or on the equipment until expert help arrives. Carry a cell phone or radio to contact others for help and keep others from helping or approaching the accident scene.
“The risk of danger is most severe on the ground,” said Christie.
Dietz added his own safety tips, advising farmers to pay close attention to the work at hand and take regular breaks.
“What’s 15 minutes here or there? When you have that accident, you are disabled for the rest of your life,” he said.
