The other day I had occasion to visit with a farmer who, like all of us, has violated some safe practices while working on his farm. Unlike some though, he is willing to talk about his experiences so others can learn from his mistakes. This is his story.

"My son was home from college for Christmas break. He grew up working with me on the farm and has done nearly every job I have done. It was good to have him back with me, if only for a short time. He is good with mechanical things and we had worked together most of the morning on the manure spreader. We both felt good when we completed the repairs together; he had learned so much on the farm.

He had learned a lot from 4-H and FFA as well. Not only leadership and social skills, but he learned about agriculture—being a successful farmer, too. In years past when family members were bothered by agricultural illnesses, we all learned from the New York Center for Agricultural Medicine and Health (NYCAMH). When they offered a safety program, my wife saw to it that my son attended it. Even as a young man he looked up to me as his teacher, his role model, his champion.

Yes, it was good to have him with me this cold winter morning. Our repairs had been successful and a load of manure was spread. I idled down the tractor and grabbed my new scraper as I jumped off the tractor to clean off the spreader. After the work we had put into the repairs we certainly didn't want to leave manure to freeze on and cause something else to break. My son and I visited as I diligently worked on this normally mundane task.

My new expensive stainless steel scraper worked so well the job was almost a pleasure this time. As I scraped manure from the front of the spreader, the blade of the scraper suddenly caught between the apron chain and its sprocket! I had left the tractor running and the PTO engaged as I had hundreds of times before. As the chain advanced and the sprocket turned, it wrenched the handle of my new stainless steel scraper from my hands and whacked me on the side of the head with it. Bleeding and stunned, I watched with my son as that new scraper twisted around, the machine refusing to acknowledge anything was wrong.

I knew what I had done was wrong, and the results had made it clearly evident. Suddenly the pain of realizing what my son had seen over-powered the pain of the physical blow to my head. He had been taught from a young age to work safely on the farm—especially around machinery. He had been taught to turn off the PTO when he works on equipment, when he repairs it, unplugs it or cleans it. He had just witnessed his dad paying the painful penalty for doing something he knew better than to do.

My son assessed the situation and stoically approached the tractor and turned it off. He took the old wood-handled scraper from its holder and as he turned to resume the work at hand he said to me "now we'll clean it the right way; you'd better go take care of your head."

There are many ways to learn about reducing the risks of working in one of the nation's most dangerous industries. Farm safety is something anybody can learn at any time in their life. Fortunately my son learned from others when he was young that when you tangle with a machine you always come out the loser. To this day, when I look out the window and see him scraping off the old spreader, I notice that it is not operating at even an idle. Then I think, on the other hand, some people seem to need a good wack on the side of the head to motivate them to work safely around farm machinery."