Total Body Fragmentation. What an obituary.
In spite of safety training, that leaves individual responsibility or the absense/presense of thought.
The only condition besides complete moronity I can excuse this with is perhaps weather - June/July it may have been heat stress leading to brain malfunction. Cold can do the same thing, but wrestling brush warms enough muscle to keep the brain from being too idiotic. He may have had some social/cultural/companionship issues as well.
I hope to not see implimentation of laws to force a two-man chipper chute mandate. The control bar is sufficient, they need regular attention as do the cognizance of each employee - check-outs often to make sure everyone's operating with a bubble on level.
Fire whistle in Iowa years ago, we followed the trucks out to a farm nearby where a 85 yr old was pulling a hay baler. He went thru the rake at least a dozen times, fell off his tractor which kept circling back to bale him over and over. Next door that very Summer a friend who blew silage up into his glass silo got bit with a u-joint bolt on the PTO and he went for a spin, it lasted an hour before his wife called him to lunch. Only a tight glob of boneless flesh was left on the shaft when the tractor ran out of fuel. We heard the change in RPM's when it must've happened from next door.
Waking-up with cold sweats still years later when I think of these incedents, I've been lucky in a macabre sense that I think about safety and death 'cause I've seen it over and again during my life - I don't want to die, get that across to the guys again and again. If they do there's nothing you can do about it except make their time on your payroll at least tolerable and understanding enough to keep 'em from doing it on your watch.
Geez.
