Accidents will happen...

Coldwood

Coldwood

Joined
Jun 5, 2006
Messages
2,718
Today was a beautiful autumn windy day, great time to mow my lawn with my 3-blade riding mower, as I have done 1000 times. I go up the hill, about 25 degree incline, crank it around in reverse. I "accidentally" left it in 4th gear. Next thing I know, I'm going backwards down the hill at 20-30 mph. I coulda and shoulda stepped off it, and let it stall out. Instead I cranked a hard right and hoped to jam it into the saplings and stop it. Next thing I know, it rolled, I'm gone flying and it's rolling.

Next thing I know, I'm face down in the grass and this 500-lb POS is on top of me. The motor was off, dead man's switch. All I'm thinking is leaking gas. It was unbalanced, and so was I, I managed to roll the MF off me. And then I rolled away.

The yard machine was sitting on it's wheels, not fuming gas. I took an inventory of my parts: no broken bones, no broken back, no broken teeth, no concussion, no blood...small shin abrasions (all kinds of things to think about, like the steering wheel in my backbone).
Just a sorry SOB lying face down in the grass, wondering how it all happened. If I'm damaged, I'm 300 yards from the house, my wife would never hear me, I might be there for hours.

Yes, I was extremely lucky. Extremely lucky.

After assessing my situation, I'm happy to say that I got back on the horse and finished the mowing job in the next hour.

This post is not about that, or about mowers, or how I should learn to drive them better, or how lucky I was.

I'm posting this on the survival page to remind everybody how quickly and unexpectedly an accident can happen. You just don't see them coming. Stupid accidents happen even faster. This, to me, was a stupid accident. I'm happy that I'm here now to write about it.
 
Glad it did not end badly for you. As far as being a stupid accident well there is a reason they call them accidents. Now a stupid accident would have been if you cleaned the grass off the blades while it was still running, in that case you would need help to type. lol
 
bishop, you have to hold the file at just the right 25 degree angle, otherwise it might go flying...
 
lol, bishop, that's exactly what I was worried about...my house was in the line of fire if this tractor/mower continued in its path...what surprised me was how quickly I was flipped over...
 
Yeah that would have been very uncool. Glad it worked out. Wait till tomarrow when the pain really shows itself. I don't know about you but Im not 16 anymore and when I get hurt...well it hurts!! At 16 you fall off of a loading dock and walk away laughing. At 35 you stub yer toe in the middle of the night and it's off to the hospital!!!
 
Son I am just glad you are O:K: . They want me to decend a pallet bridge with the tractor mower and I won,t do it cause the swaying jars my bad back .
Now I have a better reason . Have a cold one on me and be glad you are O:K: .
 
When I say flipped, I mean this effen machine rolled ass over teakettle, with me under it. I thought these things were safe. Scared the crap out of me. I'm poppin aspirin right now. (and a couple of cold ones, thank you Kevin!) I will be sore tomorrow.

Again, accidents will happen so fast, keep your heads up...or down.
 
Kevin, you keep your ass of that bridge! And where in the hell in the continental United States do we have swaying suspension bridges that anybody needs to drive equipment across?
 
Coldwood . I exagerate the motion and understate how bad my back is . It is three telephone poles down the side of a hill with pallets fastened onto it . It is actually fairly stable if a little steep .

Swaying was a misnomer . It is more the little forward and backward bucks common with lawn tractors and uneven terrain that gets me . It is an old landfill that has been filled in and planted over . You can imagine that even terrain is still a little bumpy .
 
Glad you're OK. You are not alone.

Back in my 20's cutting grass with a new John Deer giant something or other (I forget the number), brand new, paid for with taxpayer money. It was my first time on the machine. I was cutting grass for the township around a pond with a big earth dam at the end. Below the dam was a swamp. I did my first pass on top of the dam, six foot swath of grass cut, awesome machine. Second pass, more of a grade but still fine. One more pass and I have break out the green machine to get the stuff on the steep part. Six more feet will save me all sorts of time.

Mid pass suddenly I'm on two wheels, about to roll for the swamp. I'm buckled in with a big rollbar around me but the machine is going to land upside down in the water/mud and I WILL DIE. I cranked the wheel HARD left, braked the left rear tire and it fell back on all fours. I got it stopped with the front wheels in the water. The rear wheels dug two nice ruts in the dam all the way back up. No hiding the episode from the boss. Mac
 
im glad your ok, people have died when that happens, good post for everyone to see how quickly accidents happen.
 
pict said:
Glad you're OK. You are not alone.

Back in my 20's cutting grass with a new John Deer giant something or other (I forget the number), brand new, paid for with taxpayer money. It was my first time on the machine. I was cutting grass for the township around a pond with a big earth dam at the end. Below the dam was a swamp. I did my first pass on top of the dam, six foot swath of grass cut, awesome machine. Second pass, more of a grade but still fine. One more pass and I have break out the green machine to get the stuff on the steep part. Six more feet will save me all sorts of time.

Mid pass suddenly I'm on two wheels, about to roll for the swamp. I'm buckled in with a big rollbar around me but the machine is going to land upside down in the water/mud and I WILL DIE. I cranked the wheel HARD left, braked the left rear tire and it fell back on all fours. I got it stopped with the front wheels in the water. The rear wheels dug two nice ruts in the dam all the way back up. No hiding the episode from the boss. Mac
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Dang! that'll wake ya up fast!

Just 'cause it has 4 wheels doesn;'t mean it wont flip over. We had 2 folks from one of our offices killed when an ATV rolled over during a powerline inspection. It pays to know your limits, and those of your machine.

Pat
 
Extremely lucky you did not get chopped up. I have an old POS Walmart pushmower. The deadmans switch is deactivated, you have to disconnect the sparkplug to shut it off, or let it run out of gas. It runs great, but it is a hazard for the feet!
 
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