It was April 6, 2003 and Brett Verhoeven, a 20 year old from Salmon Arm, B.C., has just landed a summer job with a neigh-bour who was milking 300 cows and cropping about 300 acres.
Verhoeven knew the job well. He was raised on a 125-cow dairy farm that grew crops on about 200 acres.
His dad had sold the cows and milk quota about three years earlier, so Verhoeven was excited to be back in the dairy business as a hired hand.
One of his first tasks as a new employee was to ready the dairy farm’s pit for pumping.
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Liquid manure from the pit was to be spread on the fields in preparation for planting.
Pumping manure from the pit is a stinky job and Verhoeven and his co-workers had joked about how they were going to smell by the end of the day.
He attached the power take-off on the manure pit agitator to the 100 horsepower tractor.
After hooking up, Verhoeven got into the tractor and powered it up. He went back down to the pto to check that everything was running properly.
With the agitator running, it was time to start pumping.
A co-worker came to see if Verhoeven was ready but as he approached the tractor, he saw clothes spinning around the PTO shaft.
A split second later, he saw Verhoeven’s crumpled body laying nearby. His clothes had become entangled in the shaft.
This tragic story is common in Canadian agriculture.
On average, 115 people are killed in farm-related incidents in Canada each year. Another 1,500 are seriously injured and many minor injuries are not reported.
Of these incidents, machinery entanglements account for nine percent of fatal injuries and 15 percent of hospitalizations, according to a recent study by the Canadian Agricultural Injury Surveillance Program.
“Today’s farm machines are very large and complex,” said Glen Blahey, chair of the Canadian Agricultural Safety Association.
“Two-thirds of farm fatalities are caused by machines, mostly tractors. For those that survive, injuries from farm machines often result in amputations and long-term disabilities.”
Verhoeven is fortunate to have survived, but his injuries were severe. The pto had wrapped some of his ripped clothing tightly around his neck, crushing his throat.
His throat and air passage were badly damaged and had to be surgically reconstructed.
He also suffered three fractures in one arm, a broken shoulder blade, several broken ribs, four fractured vertebrae and a fractured skull that resulted in short-term memory loss from the brain injury.
There were numerous cuts and abrasions.
Verhoeven’s memories of the entanglement are sketchy. He remembers waking up in the Kamloops hospital two and a half weeks later.
“I knew where I was and what had happened, but I can’t remember the details,” he said.
“I’m glad I don’t remember it all, but I wish I knew what I was doing to get caught up. It all happened so fast.”
After three weeks, Verhoeven was transferred to the Vancouver Hospital for more reconstructive surgery on his lungs and air passage.
Two months after his incident, he was discharged and went home to start learning how to live again.
The first step was two months of physiotherapy.
Looking back, Verhoeven sees things that should have been done differently.
“The pto shaft didn’t have a guard on it. A lot of farmers around here think that if it isn’t going to break the machine by not having it on, then why bother putting it there?” he said.
“After my accident, a lot of farmers made repairs and put the guards back on. As a worker, it didn’t bother me that there wasn’t a guard on the pto,” he said.
“I had been given instructions on how to operate the machines in general and how to do the task – but not about the pto specifically – but I was raised on a farm so I kind of knew what was going on.
“Also my jacket was bulky and loose. If my clothes were tighter fitting, it might not have happened. There were a lot of contributing factors.”
According to Blahey, the series of events preceding Verhoeven’s injury were typical of what often happens when farm workers are injured or killed.
“Farm-related incidents are almost always the results of a series of little things that are not much on their own, but when put altogether create a significant safety hazard,” he said. “Some of these things we have control over and others we don’t. With some of these factors we can predict what might happen, and with others we can’t. That’s why it is so important to think things through and control
all the risks that you can – because that still leaves all kinds of risks out there that you’ll have no control over. This thought process is called risk management.”
Verhoeven shared his story in an effort to raise safety awareness during this year’s Canadian Agricultural Safety Week, campaign, March 8-14.
The theme of this year’s campaign, “Farm safety is my business,” emphasizes
the importance of applying risk management processes to all farm work.
Its goal is to remind farmers that farm accidents are predictable – and if something is predictable, then it is preventable.
As the spring season approaches, the campaign aims to remind farmers that they are responsible for their own safety and the safety of their workers.
In hindsight, Verhoeven said the lessons from his injury are clear.
“Maintenance and repair of safety features is just as important as the maintenance and repair of other components of the machine,” he said. “And a quick review of the job and what to watch out for would be good too. It’s really important to make safety a priority.”
Meanwhile, Verhoeven is continuing to adjust to life after the injury.
“I can’t do things as fast as I used to or as much in a day, but I’m still plugging away,” he said. “And I’m still here and that’s good.”
