DAYTON, Va. (AP) - William Martin was shown a lot of things about farm safety last week, but parts of the tractor safety presentation really stuck with him.
Not long after watching a dummy made of hay-stuffed overalls sent spinning by a tractor’s power takeoff shaft, the 13-year-old son of Kenneth and Audrey Martin said that example and the remote-controlled tractor that demonstrated how the machine can flip had made an impression.
The latter had a personal tie because of what once happened to his grandfather, Willard Martin.
“My granddad got rolled over by a tractor before,” said William, a Calvary Christian School student who lives just outside Harrisonburg and helps on the family’s turkey farm. “He had 12 broken ribs and other injuries.”
Third- through sixth-graders spent part of Saturday, March 18 at Hickory Hollow Christian School outside Dayton as part of the only Progressive Agriculture Farm Safety Day scheduled in Virginia this year. The event was co-sponsored by the Progressive Agriculture Foundation and the Sentara RMH Foundation.
Those in attendance learned about everything from germ prevention and sun exposure to safety protocols for lawn equipment and skid loaders.
The children got more than demonstrations of the dangers of farm work. They saw the potential consequences of a momentary mistake.
Art Mitchell, a Keezletown resident who taught agriculture at four Rockingham County middle and high schools during his 47-year career in education, sat in his wheelchair, pulled up his pants legs and showed the children his prosthetics. A corn picker grabbed his foot and took parts of both his legs in 1958, leading to a 98-day hospital stay and 28 operations.
“If you don’t follow the safety rules, you can get in trouble,” Mitchell told the children. “You can get in serious trouble.”
’Extremely Dangerous’
Elsewhere in the school’s parking lot, David Seal told groups of children how to properly get into and out of a skid loader using the steps and handrail and emphasized the importance of using the safety bar or seat belt each time.
“Getting into any piece of equipment, you don’t just jump in,” said Deal, a sales representative for Virginia Equipment Co.
He’d also placed adult- and child-sized mannequins behind the skid loader, close enough that if its bucket was swung around they’d be struck. He used them to demonstrate how easy it was to see the adult, but the children couldn’t see the smaller mannequin while holding the control levers.
Seal also cautioned the children against using a skid loader with the cage removed.
“At that point, it becomes an extremely dangerous machine,” he said. “You’ve got no protection against stuff coming out of the bucket and falling on you.”
Erica Rollins, who coordinated the event for Sentara RMH, said about 50 volunteers helped with the Farm Safety Day. Each child received reflective bands to wear on their arms while riding their bicycles or walking while helping on the farm after dark.
Eleven-year-old Donna Knicely, a Hickory Hollow student who lives outside Harrisonburg, was back at the event for the second year. She said she helps her grandparents feed calves every evening.
Donna said no one thing she’d been shown that morning stood out over the others.
“I learned a lot of stuff,” the daughter of Eldon and Brenda Knicely said.
Volunteers performing the demonstrations encouraged the children to share the safety tips they’d learned with family members and friends.
“If you can get somebody to stop and think,” Galen Armentrout of James River Equipment said, “you may save a life.”
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Information from: Daily News-Record, https://www.dnronline.com
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