Allotments 4 All
General => News => Topic started by: Fork on March 18, 2011, 17:15:21
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Just a reminder to take care with any mechanical equipment you use on the allotment...but mainly rotovators.
One of the chaps had an accident on our site this afternoon.He put his machine into reverse and while walking backwards,fell over and the machine carried on over his leg......he will be lucky to keep it!
I wont go into the gory details but the air ambulance was involved.
So be careful out there!
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nasty and a good reminder to keep safe on the gardens and plots
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Sorry to hear this Fork, made me cringe a bit. :o :(
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Ewww - that's gonna sting. Hope he recovers as well as possible, as quickly as possible. Dangerous thing this gardening lark.
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Poor bloke it makes you cringe , take care everybody.
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Oh wow, that's really awful.
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I had a similar experience last year when I lost half of the knuckle of my thumb, on my own made allotment shredder, at least it was a 5hp briggs that did the damage, :)
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modern equipment should have a 'dead-man's handle' type thing. ( you let go, machine stops)
another good reason for risk assessments on allotments.
hope the chap doesn't lose his leg, I bet he said a few profanities!
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When i put the howard in reverse i have to hold it in gear as soon as i let go the thing rolls forward so it dosnt eat you.
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Sounds horrible. What make is it? Remind us never to buy one!
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Hope we have better news today... :)
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Much better news today.The chap was operated on,his broken bones plated and pinned and the muscle damage sorted....He can move his toes so the prognosis is quite good :)
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Oh yuk.. there should have been some safety device as Tonybloke says. I'd be suing the @rse of the manufacturer! Good news that he is on the mend.
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I dont know the full story yet....I dont know why the rotovator kept going when he fell over.
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That's awful, thank goodness he is getting better.
My sister in law's uncle was killed while using a rotovator in Sicily last year. Nobody is sure what happened because he was on his own at the time. There were photos in the local newspaper, blood everywhere. :(
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modern equipment should have a 'dead-man's handle' type thing. ( you let go, machine stops)
another good reason for risk assessments on allotments.
I used my mantis today. It is 2 years old and does have a dead mans handle. As soon as the pressure is eased on the button it stops, plus you have to press 2 separate buttons to get it started.
Risk assessments on plots would be an absolute minefield for sure. Hence the get out clause "the council accept no liability for blah blah blah... on the site." We have a guy in our town who used to have a plot years ago. He stepped on a rake head causing the handle to bounce up onto his head with such force it left him severely brain-damaged and a shadow of his former self.
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I will go along about being careful with garden machinery I took the top of my thumb off above the knuckle last year and had it strapped up for six weeks, it was all my own fault, I will leave the details out because I was that 'thingy', :-[
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Just asked Tone and his has'nt got a reverse. Glad the chaps ok.
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Hmm... I'll check mine next time I get it out.... Howards are supposed to have an interlock to prevent reverse and rotor, but it's easily removed..... My small Howard (a 200) doesn't have a reverse gear anyway, but the 400 does, but it's pretty hard to accidentally engage a gear (it can be a bugger to get into gear deliberately sometimes) .... Given how often I'm alone when I'm rotovating (or indeed doing anything on the plot) that would be a death sentance for me.....
Best wishes to the injured guy....
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Good news, well it could have been a lot worse. :o
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Eeew, what a lot of horrible, gruesome stories. I am glad I mostly just stick to spade and fork - although you can do yourself a pretty good injury with either of those if you try, I suppose.
I do hope the poor man is still doing well.
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another good reason for risk assessments on allotments.
What good would a risk assessment do? It only highlights the risk, does nothing to stop it happening. You cannot stop a member of the public doing what he wants on his own plot. Only advise and instruct, which puts you in the clear if it is a community machine. When I was a council foreman I would give a verbal warning if I ever caught anybody walking backwards with a rotovator/ mower, etc. If they got caught again they were down the road. We eventually only allowed people with a certificate of competence on the machines they had to use. It cost a fortune in training and it might have seemed like health and safety gone mad. But accidents had to be reported RoSPA, we could get fined if training had not been taken and it would also have made us bad employers. But at home they could be as careless as they liked.
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I can just see Spike Milligan singing 'I'm walking backwards for Christmas' at the same time using a 'Mantis' and getting a bollocking off 'ACE', ;D
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Hmm... I'll check mine next time I get it out.... Howards are supposed to have an interlock to prevent reverse and rotor, but it's easily removed..... My small Howard (a 200) doesn't have a reverse gear anyway, but the 400 does, but it's pretty hard to accidentally engage a gear (it can be a bugger to get into gear deliberately sometimes) .... Given how often I'm alone when I'm rotovating (or indeed doing anything on the plot) that would be a death sentance for me.....
Best wishes to the injured guy....
My howard 350 dosnt, when i put it in reverse the rotors still spin but i have to hold the gear leaver in to engage reverse as soon as i let go tne lever springs out and the rotovator goes forward a wee bit because all the weight is at the fror of the machine.
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All gardening tools whether machine or hand tools can be dangerous, A couple of years ago I was putting the fork over my plot and someone shouted to me as I turned to look I put the fork straight through my foot. Everyone on site was afraid to pull it out and I was taken to the local A & E with it still in my foot.
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My howard 350 dosnt, when i put it in reverse the rotors still spin but i have to hold the gear leaver in to engage reverse as soon as i let go tne lever springs out and the rotovator goes forward a wee bit because all the weight is at the fror of the machine.
Discovered my 400 doesn't either.... but it is very old..... I guess part of the problem is that modern interlocked machinery might be safe but it isn't very good....a 50 year old Howard will chew through the ground like nothing else but has nothing other than the operator's attention to ensure that it doesn't also chew through the operator's foot..... Last year putting my spuds in took a day to do badly with half as many spuds as this year cos I was using a modern machine I'd hired. THis year it didn't take a morning (and then only cos I got chatting to any number of folks on the site) cos I was using an ancient, "unsafe" machine......
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I can just see Spike Milligan singing 'I'm walking backwards for Christmas' at the same time using a 'Mantis' and getting a bollocking off 'ACE', ;D
Anyone who has studied the Mantis will know that it couldn't run over you. You have to pull it backwards, if you let go of the handles it will a stop working, if it didn't the rotation of the tynes is forward and it would run forward not backwards. It would topple over and stop when you leave go of the handles.
Few of the commonly used rotavators have a reverse gear anyway. I have an Einhell which has a "deadmans handle" type of clutch lever. I used to have a Merrytiller Major and a Templar, both used the same type of clutch as the Einhell.
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I think a part of the problem is that there's a lot of old equipment avaialble on ebay and if you talk to your local rotavator nut (every site has at least one, round my way it's Brian, he has over a hundred rotavators) then they'll all wholeheatedly recommend the older gear over the newer stuff. I certainly would, chances are you'll never be using it for very many hours a year so whatever wear state it's in when you buy it it will still be in in ten years time, and from personal experience a modern rotavator with a high-speed OHV engine on it is nothing like as effective as an equivalently priced older machine.... but the older machine assumes you've either had instruction in its use or else went to a school where they taught gardening anyway, the Howard Gem was built for smallholders who had been taught how to use them......
chrisc
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from personal experience a modern rotavator with a high-speed OHV engine on it is nothing like as effective as an equivalently priced older machine
chrisc
My experience of using the Einhell is that it compares favourably with the two older machines I had. Although it hasd an OHV engine it does not need to run at high revs., in fact it performs much better on our heavy clay when running at low revs. just more than a tick-over. The 4.5hp engine is only cultivating 36cm wide, while the Merry Tiller Major had a 4.0hp engine cultivating 60cm wide. Running at low revs. the Einhell 3336 is very economical on fuel.
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Dreadful news, I am hoping he is well soon, they frighten me actually.
Re the man who stood on the bgraden rake.. I did this years ago, same year as Argentina was fighting us, long story for another day but iut was there fault I stood on the rake.
The rake went right through my foot, the foot didn't heal and despite several x rays that revealed nothing several months later they had to open my foot.. they found part of my shoe in there..well it was a slipper actually. Point is for years I have said I would rather it had come up and hit me, now I have changed my mind.
These accidents are always awful and just around the corner,
stay safe folks.
XX Jeannine
PS.. don't go outside in your slippers to see what OH is up to.
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I'm always going out onto the lottie in my slippers... but still have all my toes (tempting fate I know!)... :)