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January-February 2016
IMCDOL
N.C. Department of Labor
Cherie Berry, Commissioner
www.nclabor.com
1-800-625-2267
.ПМШ
Farm Safety Needs to Be Top Priority
Agriculture, including forestry, is a dangerous job
By Andrea Ashby, Assistant Director, Public Affairs Division
N.C. Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services
Fanning is a dangerous profession, something that Regina Cullen with the
N.C. Department of Labor is reminded of regularly. Cullen is the department’s
Agricultural Safety and Health Bureau chief, and her office investigates
reportable farming accidents.
Just about every year, Cullen said, her office sees at least one fatality
due to an accident involving a tobacco harvester. The sad part of that
sobering statistic is that “I believe they are all preventable,” she said.
Injuries are not just limited to tobacco harvesters. Augers, balers, combines,
tobacco boxes are other pieces of equipment that are commonly involved in injuries.
Accident Hits Close to Home
In 20 15, Kirk Mathis, a Wilkes County farmer and member of the N.C. Board of
Agriculture, saw the effects of a farming accident firsthand when he responded to an incident
involving a hay baler as a firefighter with his local volunteer fire department. The farmer survived,
but lost part of his arm.
Mathis said he has seen accidents before involving tractors that have rolled over, but it was the first
time in 15 years with the fire department he had seen one involving a hay baler. It has made him give more
thought to farm safety and champion the message that farmers need to be extra vigilant when working around
these large and powerful pieces of equipment.
‘‘As a firefighter, there are two calls you don’t want to hear come across the fire pager — a disc mower accident or a round baler accident —
because those are normally fatal,” Mathis said.
His message to other farmers is straightforward: “Cut this equipment off. Don't work on it while it is running. No, no, no, no, no, never do that.
Cut the durn machine off. There’s no need to leave it running.”
Mathis’ story is way too similar to ones Cullen hears in her job. Stories of workers hurrying to harvest a crop, reaching into a running machine
with a stick, a pole or their hand to loosen jammed tobacco, hay or other material. “We hear it all the time, [people say] ‘I’ve done it a hundred
times,’ or T am in a hurry,”’ she said.
Those decisions can lead to fatal consequences.
The N.C. Department of Labor investigated seven agricultural and forestry fatalities in 2012, nine in 2013, three in 2014 and six in 2015, but
those likely were not the only accidents that occurred during that time.
Under the law, only farms with
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or more employees, or that use H2A workers or provide migrant housing, are required to report fatal
accidents. Some fatalities go unreported because of the size of the farm or if it is a family business, Cullen said.
The Danger
Nationally in 20 14, agriculture, forestry, fishing and hunting posted the highest rate of fatal work injuries of any industry group, with 24.9
fatalities per every 100,000 full-time employees, according to the Census of Fatal Occupational Injuries compiled by the U.S. Department of
Labor’s Bureau of Labor Statistics.
And those numbers do not reflect the number of accidents like the one Mathis responded to that result in the loss of limbs or other injuries.
LaMar Grafft, associate director of the N.C. Agromedicine Institute at East Carolina University who has worked on fanner safety issues for
20 years, added that “agriculture is the most dangerous occupation in the United States. It is eight times the average of all other occupations.”
Nationally, about 450 people are lost each year in farming accidents.
Farmers today are working with much more powerful equipment, which is good in a production sense, but adds to the risk factor, Grafft said.
"PTO shafts turn at 540 revolutions per minute, or nine times per second. It takes three-fourths of a second for a person to realize when there’s
continued on page 3
