In the above example, you can get an idea of the mechanism of injury. As noted earlier, the Harvester became clogged with debris. So Employee #1 kept the tractor idle and went to clear the way.

The open slat conveyor and a solid steel roller grabbed and trapped the worker. No indication exists whether clothing or some other article like a shoelace began the pulling process.

And had it not been for the co-worker stopping the machine, Employee #1 could have been rapidly killed. Either way, there will be permanent mental and physical complications for years.

Wrongful Death Case – Rodriguez versus Osterkamp Farms

On May 19, 2015, at 3:30 a.m., decedent and one of the defendant’s beet harvester machine operators were near their respective autos. The two of them perhaps were at the rear of the beet harvester machine either talking or attempting to make mud clear from the harvester. At this point, the machine operator left the rear of the beet harvester, entered the cab of his tractor. So as decedent stood near the machine, the other man engaged the power. He did so even though he knew or should have known Rodriguez had been cleaning mud from the machine. So the operator negligently failed to check for a human in the area. So the harvester ran for 30-60 seconds. At this point, the operator walked back to the rear of the equipment. He then noticed the pieces of decedent’s mangled, dead body inside the harvester. (Source).

Like other crops, trucks often haul sugar beets to receiving stations. There they get weighed and offloaded onto sugar beet pilers. Another function of pliers is to remove more soil from the sugar beets, as they get stored in 18 feet tall, 1500 feet long “piles.” After beet samples are analyzed for their sugar content, tare, and overall purity, rehaul trucks are loaded with the approved sugar beets.

Truckers, such as the above decedent, are involved in delivering the sugar beets for final factory processing. Then, it is time to begin the process all over again. (Source).

Ehline has vast experience in all types of farm accidents, such as those above. Our firm helps workers in various farm accidents, from seeding to harvest. However, there are many more crops with their attendant risks to workers in the production chain. So keep on reading.

Personal Injury And California Carrots.

California’s carrot growers account for approximately 85% of fresh market production. So much so that the City of Holtville styles itself as the world’s Carrot Capital. This city even has an annual carrot celebration called the Holtville Carrot Festival.

And rightly so. After all, Daucus Carota grows year-round in many parts of California. Unlike beets and dry beans, carrots are shipped out of the state year-round. But California’s larger shipments take place from December through August. (Source).

California’s main production areas for carrots are where many labor accidents occur as follows:

1. San Joaquin & Cuyama Valleys of Kern County & Santa Barbara County.
2. Southern desert of Imperial County & Riverside County.
3. The high desert of Los Angeles County.
4. The central coast of Monterey County.

Consumer demand for uniform roots of deep orange and other colors, such as those sold in bunches at Whole Foods or Vons Pavillions, has led to the development of highly efficient Imperator-type hybrids.

Varieties for sold for the cut and peel market include:

• Sugarsnax.
• Top cut.
• Primecut.
• Trinity.
• Imperial Cut.
• Tastypeel.

But there are also Cello varieties under the brand names:

• Apache.
• Navajo.
• Maverick.
• Choctaw.

As you can see, catchy native American names are all part of the marketing game.

More About the Dangers of the Carrot Harvester Machine.

First of all, there are many types of carrot harvesting machines. For example, there is a top lift and a share lift machine. Simon typically manufactures these. These two kinds of harvesters collect carrots from the ground differently.

But all in all, a Carrot Harvester is used for harvesting carrots. Some carrot combines may be tractor-mounted, while others may be trailed behind a tractor. Still, other combines are self-propelled.

Commercial machines typically harvest between one and six rows of carrots at once. Like the other machines already discussed, workers help operate, maintain, and clear obstructions from the fields.

And when they do, sometimes people get seriously hurt or killed.

• Top lifting harvester injuries.

Top lifters present risks for pulling workers into their rubber belts as they grab the carrot’s green tops. Workers walking alongside are also at risk for foot and leg amputations and lacerations.

The following potential injury occurs when the carrots, with intact tops, are pulled into the machine, and the tops are cut off on their path to a waste chute out the rear. Imagine a hand or arm being lobbed off and spit out the tail into the field. These are real concerns for most laborers.

• Share lifting harvester injuries.

A share lifter uses a share to get the carrots out of the ground from underneath. The machine must be preceded by a topper with cutting blades that chop the green tops off the ripened carrot plants.

After, the carrots are carried on conveyors designed to sift away as much soil as possible. But the cutting blades have been known to come loose or get jammed.

Also, workers are hit by flying objects and debris when these things occur. Also, even after harvest, other injury risks are attendant with the cleaning and delivery process. The carrots are collected in a storage tank on the machine or towed trailers pulled in tandem.

Using a process called weeding, laborers have to clear away the freshly cut tops off of the machine, which presents a great chance of injury or death to the worker. (Source). Like other agriculture workers in every stage of the process remain at risk for injury and death.

Combine Grain Harvesters and Personal Injury.

The combine harvesters available today can combine all three steps into one smooth process. Consequently, harvesting grains is now more straightforward and efficient and helps stimulate the mass production of various grains.

Using a combine or harvester on a plantation leaves behind waste straw or the remaining dried leaves and stems on the field. The modern grain combines harvester, or fuse, can harvest various grain crops.

Like other harvesters, the name comes from its ability to perform multiple steps of harvesting operations as follows:

• Reaping.
• Threshing
• I am winnowing—into a single process.

Among the grain crops harvested with a grain combine are:

• Wheat.
• Oats.
• Rye.
• Barley.
• Corn and maize are discussed below.
• Sorghum.
• Soybeans.
• Flax (linseed).
• Sunflowers.
• Canola.

Last but not least, grains are a significant source of animal feed, like straw. The scattered straw on the field comprises the stems and any remaining leaves of the crop with limited nutrients left in it: the straw is then either chopped, spread on the ground and plowed back in or baled for bedding and limited feed for livestock.

Often, these chopping machines can rip an arm off or operate like a bear trap, leading to a slow, painful death.

Combine harvesters are one of the most economically critical labor-saving inventions, significantly reducing the fraction of the population engaged in agriculture.

The leftover waste straw contains limited nutrients. It is usually chopped and scattered across the farming field. Sometimes the remaining straws are baled and fed to livestock or utilized as bedding.

The grains that are most commonly machine-harvested are:

• Barley.
• Flax.
• Oats.
• Rye.
• Soybean.
• Wheat.

To recap, combined harvesters have undergone tremendous development with the introduction of safety and technological advancements in machinery. Also, as part of a team effort, ground crews and operators have learned to optimize the machine’s harvesting speed and systems to increase yield.

And, of course, in California farm country, more and more combine harvesters travel along highway shoulders and roadways.

Sadly, in addition to grain harvesting injuries to workers, people get into terrible combined involved traffic wrecks. Think about it, a slow-moving vehicle, even with a sign to alert other drivers, is no assurance of a safe ride.

Besides, this is a fast-paced job and every second counts. Because of this, farmers may enter roads with dirty windshields, drive at unsafe speeds, and fail to signal or use proper lighting. Recently in the news, we have seen a spike in railroad crossing accidents with combines.

• Grain Storage Silos Personal Injury.

Many terrible grain deaths and accidents center around the storage silos and bins. First of all, cleanliness is safety. A clean grain storage bin area helps prevent many types of grain accidents.

Next, the moisture content in the grains before storage is vital to worker safety. For example, imagine a farmer trying to loosen up water-cemented grain with a pick-axe or rake as he tries to loosen the hard grains and empty his bin.

Even a leaky bin can allow the grain to become wet and heavy. As the worker begins to loosen up the clumps, an avalanche of thousands of pounds can fall on the worker, crushing and killing him.

Negligent employers should have made inspections, but now it’s too late. Someone is dead. Grain bin safety means fewer funerals. So do your part to avoid future grief.

California Onion Harvests and Personal Injury.

California is the largest onion producer in the U.S. Also, California remains the only producing summer and spring harvests of eye-watering vegetables.

In 2015, the Golden State grew 31% of the nation’s total onion yield. Counties at risk for the most onion harvesting injuries are Fresno, Imperial, Kern, Siskiyou, and San Joaquin.

Also, a small enclave for onion-related injuries exists in the high deserts regions like L.A. County’s Antelope Valley and the Salinas Valley.

Injuries commonly happen when pickers snap the rolls to keep material flowing into the feeds and separators.

What Machines Used For Onion Harvests?

• Mowers: Mowers are especially hazardous to farm workers. Typically, sharp, rapidly rotating blades mow the tops of the onions off. However, knives have been known to fly off and kick up a lot of soil and dust. So, in addition to lacerations and cuts to the lower extremities, eye injuries remain common in mowing jobs.
• Windroller: This machine is designed to uproot the onions from the bottom up. Afterward, the onions run along a conveyor system designed to clean soil from the vegetables, depositing them into a single row collected by workers.
• Topair Combines: This machine picks up two rows of onions at a time and blasts them with air into a collection area where laborers hand-sort the vegetables. Next, workers will load the approved onions into an adjacent trailer or bin that gets towed to a packinghouse for shipment. (Source).

As noted above, onion harvesting still requires a lot of machines and human interaction, regardless of the type of harvesting methods.

Also, as with other combines, there are a lot of rapidly moving and sensitive parts. As such, machine and different spinal cord-related issues remain prevalent with onion workers.

Harvesting Onions at Night and the Risks to Workers?

Because onions remain at significant risk for sunburn most of the time, onions are harvested at night. Laborers typically begin the hand-harvest process in the late afternoon and work till midnight.

Next, the machine harvester takes over to do their part of the job, perhaps till around the following afternoon. The machines will still move, even if jammed or plugged in. But now, the stalks can bunch up all around the rolls.

And that blocks the stalks being harvested from being grabbed into the harvesting machine. And this is when farmers are in a hurry to get work done to try and clear the jams or clogs without shutting down the picker machine and tractor. When moving, the farmer may grab a stalk to pull it out.

But this may be enough to make the machine quickly jerk the worker into the contraption before he can even let go of the plant material.

Now, the worker’s arm is sucked into snapping rollers traveling approximately 12 feet per second. So that would give a worker pulling a branch two feet long less than half a second to let go before losing a limb. Often, the worker is startled and cannot react in time to prevent this type of accident.

TIP: Always turn off the machine when you stop. Disable the blades and pullers before clearing jams!

EXAMPLE: Man dies after being pulled into onion harvester

Authorities identify a man killed in an onion harvesting machine accident in rural Oregon. (Source).

And be careful, this could be you: On October 19, 2019, 42-year-old Theodore Frahm was killed in an onion harvesting machine accident.

Frahm and others were working on farm equipment used to harvest onions and at one point the equipment was turned on and pulled Frahm into the equipment, according to the news release. (Source).

As you can see, combined harvesters being turned on when a person is near the machine is a significant cause of farming deaths. Employers, manufacturers, and others may have all played a part in causing these mishaps.

So they are all potentially on the hook to pay you or the surviving family. That is why it is crucial to get legal advice before agreeing to anything or giving statements to investigators. And this is in addition to the other calamities discussed above related to harvesting machines.

Corn Harvest Injuries in the Golden State.

Corn is America’s number one cash crop, worth over $47.38 billion in 2008 alone. California ranks number two for corn production nationwide. And it grows and harvests 16% of all sweet corn in the U.S.

However, most of California’s corn is converted to hay, or animal feed, for dairy cows. Corn harvesters, like other combines, harvest corn based on its unique plant configuration.

The process starts by stripping the stalks protruding around one foot off the ground. Next, it shoots the stalks into a header and reaches the floor after the corn is stripped away. But the corn products continue their journey through the title to the intake conveyor belt.

Next, the conveyor belts send the kernels into a fan system, which divides up any still intact stalks from the corn ears.

The remaining stalks are then blown out of huge ducts into the field. And the corn ears are moved to another conveyor belt and dumped into a large moving bucket. A forager, hay, or chopper are all variations of this arm implement designed to turn forage plants into hay or animal feed.

Silage can be made from corn, hay, or grass chopped up into tiny pieces and pressed into bails or sillage bags.

But often, surpluses are placed in storage silos. And these bins are also called bunkers. Making sillage includes a fermentation process to convert it into livestock feed.

What are the Top Counties for a Sillage Harvester Injury?

• Imperial.
• Fresno.
• San Joaquin.
• Contra Costa.
• Riverside.

California corn for sillage production was valued at $182 million in 2010, up 48% from 2009. There are many laborers and workers involved in corn and sillage production. The National Agricultural Safety Database claims that almost any farmer, friend, neighbor, or family member knows of somebody hurt or killed in corn picker machine accidents.

Many corn-picking machine deaths happen due to faulty hydraulic cylinders.

Also, many industrial picker machines are more significant than those used for other crops like beets. These larger machines present blind spots to operators, placing field workers at risk of being crushed or run over.

In an agricultural area like Santa Paula, California, you may have seen these wider-than-normal combines pacing slowly along the highways with “Wide Load” signs and flashing emergency lights. This makes operating these machines particularly dangerous to other road users and motorists, especially motorcycle riders.

So it goes without saying that corn picker accidents have led to many injuries and deaths in the geographical areas they operate. Most of all, farms, feedlot, dairy, and silage contractors should train their employees in proper silage production safety. And they should have regular safety meetings. Getting people back safe to their families should be every boss’s goal.

Grape Harvester Personal Injuries.

California produces 90% of the grapes grown in the United States and 7.7 % worldwide. As a result, California is ranked number one in the nation’s production of wine, wine grapes, table grapes, and raisins.

Workers in the grape industry have long had various work-related Work-related musculoskeletal disorders (“WRMDs”). WRMDs are hard to classify under traditional disease classifications.

But we know that symptoms include constant pain, and loss of function and can result in total physical disability. Like CMP or Patella Femoral Pain Syndrome, their initial diagnosis is difficult since they are based on subjective pain symptoms. But substantial evidence exists that WRMDs are high among wine grape vineyard workers. Perhaps it’s from ergonomic risk factors associated with many repetitive agricultural jobs. (Source). For example, this type of work involves body vibration and routine overhead picking. Because of this, the neck remains in a chronic and repetitive flexion position during forceful, strenuous tasks.

For years, scientists and engineers have been looking for ways to cut out laborers and the associated costs of pensions, retirements, and medical care insurance. Also, harvesting machines, as discussed above, have often caused more harm to soft-skinned grapes than any good they did by yield increase. But as concerned, with genetic engineering and better machinery, WRMDs could soon be a thing of the past for grape harvesters.

Machine Harvesting of Grapes.

Picking grapes bay is a very labor-intensive and injury-prone affair. Recent advances have led to viable machine harvesting. Although it is more efficient in almost every way (can pick, crush, and chill in half an hour or less), compared to handpicking, which takes a gaggle of expensive laborers and at least four hours to achieve the same process.

• How Do Grape Harvester Machines Work?

Mechanical grape harvesters use bow-like rods to remove the berries from their host plant’s cluster.

The idea is to leave the rachis behind on the vine. Less efficient machines were used in the past. But the newest generation of grape harvesters is even better at de-stemming and sorting Material Other than Grapes, or “MOG.” So that cuts out the need for more laborers to de-stem and sort at the winery itself.

Example of Recent Grape Harvesting Machine Accident in the News.

As discussed on www.ehlinelaw.com, maintenance and on-the-spot fixes of these machines are when people get hurt most. For example, just recently, a field worker was killed after he tried to clear an obstruction from a grape harvester.

Leon Marcelo Lua, 49, was killed after he tried to unclog a grape harvester by reaching into a rotating shaft, according to the federal Labor Department and Napa County Sheriff’s Office.

The shaft caught his sweatshirt, pulling him into the machine and killing him. According to OSHA records, a colleague turned the engine off and tried to render aid to him, but his body went limp after a few seconds.

In the newsworthy example above, an article about Lua’s loose clothing became stuck in the machine’s rotating shaft. So here is one example of poor worker safety and training.

For whatever reason, decedent Lua was working on a moving machine designed to grab and pull things in! As the trend moves towards the mechanical harvesting of raisins, we expect to hear more stories of worker deaths.

Sure, the government can fine or penalize the farming conglomerates, but how does that pay the survivors? In the above case:

…..violations issued included one for failing to guard a revolving shaft, and another for failing to turn off an engine before trying to unclog, clean or otherwise service a piece of equipment, according to OSHA’s website. (See above source)

So the question is, what does Lua’s family do now? These are the questions we attempt to answer further down. But there is hope, even after the grief of wrongful death.

Over-the-row mechanical harvester for harvesting apples

Hand-harvesting, the U.S. apple crop, is labor-intensive. And now that apple cider, or ‘hard cider,’ is becoming popular, fermented apple juice has become a hot commodity in the U.S. liquor industry.

Of particular interest, we saw a 65% increase in production from 2008 to 2014. Because of this, cost-effective means of harvesting have led to experimentation with many machine configurations for apples.

Mechanical over-the-row ‘shake and catch’ harvesters are designed for smaller hand “Brown Snout” and “Malling” apple graft mixes. And these are grown on a low trellis.

Enter The Vacuum Harvester!

Farmers have sought an effective and efficient vacuum harvester for apples and oranges for years.

But it appears that DBR Conveyor Concepts has developed a two-part system that includes:

• A self-propelled Brownie Quad platform.
• And a vacuum harvesting unit.

Now, this crew-served machine can reduce the laborers to four pickers. Their primary mission is to man the hydraulic platform picking the tree apples as high as 13-14 feet.

The methodology is to place each apple into a foam-lined vacuum receiver tube. This tube rapidly carries the apple away at a fantastic speed of 12 feet per second. Once the apples approach the distributor wheel, foam-lined deceleration wheels slow the apple down, gingerly dropping it onto a distributor wheel into a bin without bruising the fruit.

What About the Pluk-O-Trak?

Munckhof’s Pluk-O-Trak harvester combines reconfigurable hydraulic platforms. It can be used for pruning, hand thinning, and even trellis maintenance.

Also, these machines come equipped with pulling conveyor belts to carry their apples to storage containers. Loose clothing and jewelry can catch on these fast-moving belts as the fruit picker places the apple onto a designated finger sending it to a rotating bin filler.

The fingers on the belts help avoid bruising of the apple’s skin on the way to the container. The machine’s builder asserts that “fruit quality is increased by 50% to 60% compared to conventional harvesting methods.”

Using a crew of six to eight people and no risk of falling from ladders, severe injury, and death risks are significantly mitigated. Also, the workers expend less physical energy and strain, which helps reduce fatigue, heatstroke, and heat exhaustion.

Other Ideas to Help Farmers Avoid Injury?

Researchers are perfecting ideas like:

• A shake and catch system that specifically targets the tree canopy and then catches the fruit directly beneath to reduce fall bruising and damage from scraping against or hitting branches or other fruit.
• A crop load estimation tool utilizing machine vision that computes the number and size of each piece of tree fruit to estimate crop size.
• I am using crewless aerial vehicles (“UAVs”) to scare off birds, rodents, and other threats to cherry, blueberry, and grape crops. (Source).

Over the Row Mechanical Harvester – Citrus Harvesters.

Like apples, over-the-row mechanical harvesting machines are also used for dwarf and young citrus trees. But these fruits are gathered using the same devices that reap blueberries and olives.

The future wave is the versatile citrus harvesting machines that can be adapted for different crops. But retrofitting will bring with it new injuries to workers. Some of these advances in the mechanization of citrus harvesting are published in IJABE. (Source).

Potatoes and Personal Injury.

Because of California’s fantastic climate, it remains the only state capable of harvesting potatoes year-round. Potato harvesters are machines used for harvesting potatoes.

Like Beet harvesters, they work by lifting the potatoes from the earth’s soil bed using a share. Soil and crop are transferred onto webs where the loose soil is sieved out.

The potatoes are moved towards the back of the harvester onto a separation unit and then (on operated machines) to a picking table where people pick out the stones, clods, and haulms (stems or stalks) by hand.

The potatoes then go onto a side elevator and into a trailer or a potato box. Like other machines, pesticide-filled soil gets kicked up, and eye injuries are common. Back injuries remain the mainstay of these field worker injuries.

Potato spinner injuries.

A potato spinner is attached to a tractor via its three-point linkage or hitch that pulls a flat piece of metal that runs horizontally to the ground. As it digs into the earth, potatoes are lifted by a large wheel with spokes called a reel.

All the while, tilling motion pushes clay and potatoes off to the side without bruising them. After, laborers will usually bend over and place them into bags or baskets and then move away from the field for packing and distribution.

Haulm topper injuries.

A haulm topper cuts potato haulms off before harvest. Like a flail mower, some potato farmers will mount a haulm topper in the front of their tractor and tow a potato harvester behind it. But some toppers are rear-mounted.

The machines have many blind spots and other potential grabbing risks inherent in harvesting machines.

Farm Accident: Potato Harvester Crushes Worker’s Leg

While performing maintenance on a potato harvester, a farmworker fell, and his leg was caught and then crushed. This slide show tells the story of this workplace accident. (Source). As can be seen, farm injuries are far more common than one might think.

Sugarcane Harvester Injuries.

“If you take the [Metro] Blue Line to Long Beach, from the train, you’ll see a lot of homes with sugar cane growing in the backyard.” (Source LA Times). But with our water crisis, California will have difficulty sustaining more than a few hundred acres of cane in a season. Sugarcane has been successfully grown in California’s Imperial Valley for decades.

The soil is relatively rich with deep alluvial clay loam and, with the availability of irrigation water due to the Imperial Valley’s priority allotment of water from the Colorado River basin, is well-suited for farming. The area is recognized as one of the most productive agricultural regions in the world.

Due to the dry climate, intense sunlight, and irrigation, Imperial Valley sugarcane can be planted and harvested year-round, unlike Florida, Louisiana, and Texas, where rain limits the harvesting season to six months. (Source).

A sugarcane harvester is a giant piece of farm equipment used to harvest agriculture and partially process sugarcane. The machine remains similar in function and design to the traditional combine harvester. So, it essentially comes with a storage vessel on a truck with an automatic extension.

From there, the machine cuts the stalks at the base, strips the leaves off, and chops the sugar cane into various segments stored in an onboard container or a separate tandem vehicle.

Also, any waste product is shot out of the field, where it is recycled as plant fertilizer.

• Types of Combines on the California Market:

For example, the sweet spot in harvesting potatoes and onions lies in digging them up and ripping their roots from the earth without injuring or tearing the vegetables’ skin.

The farmer’s choice of harvester plays a significant role in deciding this. The cost of fuel and maintenance is also part of the balancing factor. Some harvesting combines that may harm the vegetables less are so expensive that they could be a wash.

Some of the harvested items will be destroyed during harvesting. So the total operating costs will always play a role in the choice of machinery selection.

A regular gas motor will have higher running and maintenance costs, despite lower gasoline prices when compared to diesel fuel. As a result, the low-maintenance Cummins Diesel is among the most popular combined engines for vehicle manufacturers.

And like the big rigs that haul farm products, diesel engines, in general, are the preferred types of motors powering most combines in California.

IMPORTANT: Besides the risks attendant with harvester machines, workers face toxic exposure to diesel fumes while working in the fields.

The more popular combined manufacturers are as follows:

• Case IH.
• Challenger.
• Claas.
• Class Lexion.
• Ford.
• Gleaner.
• International.
• John Deere.
• Lexion.
• Massey-Fergusson.
• New Holland.

To recap, workers can be injured in many long and short-term ways. In the agricultural industry in the US, harvesters play a vital role in overall production. However, harvester accidents are a pervasive problem in every state. Harvester vehicles pose many dangers to the users and people close to this heavy machinery.

Also, harvester accidents are frequent, contrary to what many may believe. Such accidents are often the most disastrous, with severe injuries and even fatalities.

For this reason, individuals working near harvesters must exercise the utmost care to avoid being sucked inside and mangled or killed.

Safety Training is Key.

Farm work, including harvester combine deployment, means exposure to many large, dangerous moving machine parts. Most accidents occur because of a problem with one of these moving parts.

Because of this, workers must be adequately trained in safety. Staying safe and alive means attention to the minor details.

Some of the worst dangers involving harvester accidents are:

• Incorrect use of straw chopper or spreader equipment towed at the vehicle’s rear.
• Entanglement of workers with the grain tank leveling or discharge area.
• If a cutting system tugs, yanks, or pulls a worker into its mechanism.
• They were being sliced and cut up by the rotating reel, knife, or stripper rotor.
• The machine’s header unfastens itself from the transport trailer.
• The automatic sensor system hurts or traps the user.
• When a harvester collides with a person or thing.

Some More Safety Tips for Combine Users.

Some safety tips while using combines are as follows:

• Assess field losses regularly. In other words, ensure the machine is not damaging, losing, or destroying more than 1% of the yield during harvest.
• Drive at a safe speed for the conditions. Don’t run down your field workers. And don’t go so fast. You jam the intakes. Find the sweet spot for total separation efficiency.
• Never refuel a hot combine. Burn injuries from ignited fuel vapors happen fast in 100 degrees plus weather. Add a hot engine to this, and a vapor explosion is possible. Most combination fires occur during the refueling process.
• Maintain a proper fire extinguisher. And make sure it can be accessed from ground level so you don’t have to enter the cab of a burning vehicle to grab it.
• Undertake routine maintenance. Before starting your shift, make sure and grease the vehicle and check for safety issues.
• Pay attention to your surroundings while driving. Stay hydrated, get plenty of rest, and stay calm when operating the vehicle.
• Maintain a cushion of space from other machines and autos. Always remember that you are controlling a massive engine capable of killing people. Always be relaxed, and always know where you are. Exude confidence.
• Clear away soil, mud, and other debris like chaff left from the machine regularly. Make visual inspections of the rotating shafts, axle, other bearings, and conveyor belts. If something sounds wrong with the device, there could be plant material or another object trapped or wrapped around some of the internal areas of the device.

Don’t forget that California employers must create an IIPP or Injury & Illness Prevention Program. Your employer should pre-plan accidents so a system is in place to investigate illnesses and injuries. Your employer is also supposed to plan for near misses during the day.

Also, employers must investigate and document details of any farm accidents in writing. Typically, HR or someone most knowledgeable about the law handles these reports.

Drones and Evidence Gathering?

Autonomous systems and drones will be used increasingly in harvesting and planting crops. These will all be equipped with cameras and be crew-served. Machine jams will still have to be cleared; other issues will require human hands.

As your attorney, we will rapidly send out demands to preserve this evidence to prove whether a product defect or failure by the employer caused these injuries or deaths.

Farm and Combine Machine Accident Lawyers.

Ehline Law Firm Personal Injury Attorney has proudly provided you with the most up-to-date, cutting-edge information on your rights, duties, and obligations as an employee and an employer when a severe injury occurs on a farm.

Harvesting combines can kill you or help you. But there are other injuries and accidents besides those caused by combines during the entire food production chain.

Only an attorney can help you maximize the money you can get for yourself or your family in these complex and confusing cases. If you suffered a farming or harvesting machine accident, our personal injury lawyers are ready to help you with your employment or third-party lawsuit claims.

You may be entitled to compensation, so don’t sleep on your rights. We help suffering clients in Los Angeles, San Bernardino, Imperial County, Sacramento, and Southern California.

Schedule a Free Consultation With A Combine Accident Lawyer In Los Angeles Today!

We have been trustworthy advocates to thousands of clients over the past 15 years. Call us to learn more about your rights, duties, and obligations in a case like this before the statute of limitations expires. Get the compensation you deserve by calling (213) 596-9642.