- Good afternoon, and welcome to this afternoon's
breakout session on Farm Safety Assessment,
Protecting the Next Generation of Farmers,
presented by Laura Daniels and John Quirk.
Laura, at Heartwood Farms,
Cobb, Wisconsin, Laura and her husband Gared Srills,
takes great joy in teaching their children,
Nathan, 13 and Julia, 9,
their values as they work together.
While Laura and Gared share in the ownership of the farm,
it is Laura who serves as general manager
in charge of day to day operations.
They have six full-time employees, 300 Jersey cows,
and operate 650 acres of crop and pasture land.
More recently, she is hitting the road to deliver
pro-Ag, and motivational speeches across the country,
inspiring many to find their passion,
build their skills,
and have confidence to tell their story.
Laura also does consulting in the areas of team building,
employee management and dairy cattle nutrition
for Star Blends, located in Sparta, Wisconsin.
Our other speaker is John.
And he has been with Rural Mutual
Insurance Company since October of 1988.
He started out as a personal alliance underwriter
and then moved on to underwrite commercial lines.
In June of 1995, John became the director
of marketing services where he was responsible
for Rural's corporate advertising,
telemarketing, and co-op programs
as well as agent education
and training.
In January of 2008, John became
the senior product specialist where
he worked on a wide variety of coverage enhancements,
including regulatory issues with OCI.
In March of 2011, John rejoined marketing
as the Director of Marketing.
Prior to joining Rural Mutual, John worked as a commercial
underwriter with Century Insurance.
He was also an independent insurance agent for six years
in Seattle, Washington.
John lives in Green Bay, Wisconsin with his wife, Nancy,
and they have two sons, Andrew and Michael.
Please join me in welcoming John and Laura.
(applause)
- Well, thanks, Rosalie.
I guess after all is said and done
with that introduction, is I was doing insurance
for a long, long time, more than anything else.
But I appreciate the opportunity to talk to you today
and thank you all for coming
and being a part of this session.
One of the things that led us to start talking about this
was back about three and a half years ago.
I'm a discussion me judge for the
Wisconsin Farm Bureau Federation
and one of the topics that they were talking about
was farm safety.
And as I was sitting there as a judge
listening to the contestants talk about it,
I was taken back by the last comment that was made
by one of the contestants.
And they said, "Well, we talked about a lot of
"really interesting things today,
"but you know what,
"I don't think anybody really cares.
"And I really don't think anybody's gonna
"do anything about it."
And that was my "Wow" moment.
I went, "Really?"
We got to do something about this.
And so we went back to the office and we started
talking a little bit more about this and saying,
"You know, there is something that we should be able to do."
As the leading insurer of farms in the state of Wisconsin,
we oughta be paying attention to this
and talking about it a little bit more.
And then about two months later I was at the
Wisconsin Fresh Fruit and Vegetable Conference,
and I met someone from the National Farm Medicine Center.
And she came up to our booth and she said,
"Hey, we're doing a safety program, and we have
"a lot of information regarding safety on the farm
"for kids.
"Would you be interested?"
And it was like, (chuckling)
"Oh, my Gosh, yeah, we'd love to talk to you about it."
And so I had the opportunity to go to Marsh Field
and to talk to the folks there,
and learn about their programs
and their resources that they have.
The challenge that they have
is that they don't have a way to distribute the information.
They got great information, but they have
no way of distributing it.
And so I said, "You know what, "I think we can help ya.
"I work for two really great organizations,
"one being the Wisconsin Farm Bureau Federation,
"the other one with Rural Mutual Insurance.
"We're out on farms every day.
"So we'd be happy to share your information
and distribute it."
And so we started this partnership,
and we built some resources for you,
and we'll talk about that in a little bit,
about where you can go and find information,
because that was the one thing in the discussion
that they talked about.
They said, "You know, trying to find
"information on the internet is really tough.
"You gotta spend a lot of time doing a lot of searching,
"going to a lot of different places to find this stuff.
"It would be great if there was just one place that
"we could go to and find that information out."
And so that's part of what we developed
and that's part of what we built.
The other thing that really startled me
and got my attention to this and why I
am all in on this program
is that the statistics that are coming out
of the National Farm Medicine Center
when you talk about children on the farm
are pretty alarming.
And the one that got me the most was that
every 3.2 days,
a child dies
in a farm-related accident in the United States.
3.2 days.
That's unacceptable, as far as I'm concerned.
And that's why getting the word out,
educating people as much as possible
is what's kind of driving me to do this.
And I don't know whether or not
you go to a presentation like this
and go back to your farm and take a look and what's goin' on.
Or you go to our website,
and you look at some of the information
and you take some of that back.
I don't know what the results are on that.
But what I hope
is that if we can prevent one more child
from getting seriously injured or killed on a farm,
it's all worthwhile.
And so that's part of what we're going to talk about today.
Why farm safety?
Kind of what we talked about.
Some of the safety concerns.
Some stories.
We'll be showing you a video about farm families
and some of the stories that they want to share.
We'll talk a little bit about that farm safety evaluation,
how you can use it and what's goin' on with that.
And some of the farm safety resources that we have
created for you that you can use along the way.
And then some action steps.
But the first action step that I want to take
is I want to introduce to you Laura Daniels.
Most of you know Laura, she was your keynote speaker
last year.
Laura is probably the best egg advocate that I know.
And she has passion.
All of you who know Laura,
know Laura has passion.
And when Laura's committed to something,
she is 100% in
and I was very happy to convince Laura
to be a part of this with us,
to be a co-presenter, to be a co-partner with me
in these presentations,
because Laura not only brings her passion with it,
but she brings her experience of being a manager,
a co-owner on a farm.
Probably more important than anything else, being a Mom,
and having kids that live on that farm,
and be able to tell those stories.
With that, here's Laura.
(applause)
- It's always awesome when you can get
a round of applause before you even do anything.
Right? Hello.
My friend Carrie is sitting by me here in the front row.
And when John was saying how I'm all in on everything,
she whispered in my ear,
"Accept for that whole turning 40 thing,
"you weren't very all in on that."
(giggling)
So, thanks for the reminder, Carrie.
I think part of the reason John asked me to get involved
with this is because so much of what I spend my time
with women like you,
not just here in Wisconsin, but thankfully now,
across the nation, hello, it's crazy.
But part of what I do is reconnect you to your passion.
And in many ways that is the reason why you farm,
it's the reason why you're involved in Agriculture.
We are so passionate about having our families with us
on the farms.
And that is one of the things that drew many of you
to this business, to this way of life
is having the chance to work side by side
with your family, your husband, your children,
your employees, your cows.
And part of that, there are a lot of traditions
and some of those traditions are amazing.
The lessons that our children can learn.
Life and death I think is one of the
most important things that they learn
just being on a farm.
But some of those traditions are not okay.
And we have to be able, as Moms,
and as leaders of our businesses
to look at that and say,
"What is a good tradition,
"and what is something we've done for a long time
"that needs to change?
"What do we need to make into a new
"and different tradition?"
Growing up, I spent a lot of time on the fender
of a 40 ton tractor or the international 606.
And I always thought that little handle,
when you get up onto the tractor,
you know it's cut out and it's got rubber around it,
so you can grab on.
I always thought that was for the kid to hold onto,
so you didn't fall off.
Turns out it's actually just so you can step up safely.
And that's one of the things
that I think we really need to challenge ourselves on.
Is it okay to have our kids side by side
in a situation that's almost always safe,
but not always.
And so, some of what John and I are gonna talk
about today has to do with that.
It has to do with making new and better traditions.
Because as the slide shows,
we take so much pride in the traditions that we have
on farm.
For those of you who were here last year,
if you remember, I gave you this long list of values.
The reason I wanted to bring this up is because
two of my own value words,
gentleness and reliability.
To me they can also embody farm safety.
One of the reasons we teach all of our employees
and my children and my husband.
One of the reasons we teach them to be
really gentle with our cows,
is because it's a safer working environment.
If the cows are quiet, we will have less injuries
to both cows and people.
And so, yeah, it's a value word,
I spent a lot of time talking about that last year, but,
there's a farm safety message there as well.
Reliability is another word that's really important to me.
That started out through me encouraging my employees
to come to work on time, if you remember
back to last year.
I was having a lot of trouble with that.
And when we started choosing people based on
how reliable they were, things changed with
our team at the dairy.
Reliability is also a word that I'm trying hard
to embody.
Sometimes I say yes to too many things,
and I can't follow through on them all.
And so I'm trying, myself, to be more reliable.
But reliability, again, has a farm safety message.
As the owner of my dairy, together with my husband,
it's my job to make sure that my people are safe.
And so, making sure that the guards are
on our equipment,
making sure that the electricity is properly grounded,
making sure that we're not pushing them so hard
that they work so quickly
that they make poor decisions.
We can set the traditions for our own farms.
We can make new traditions that are safer.
And so one of the really important things to remember
is that children are the ones who are
at the most risk for farm accidents.
And I think as Moms, how many of you are Moms?
Okay, how many of you are raising kids on a farm
or have done that?
Okay, same hands, right?
It's farm safety,
we think about the children so much and you should.
As John mentioned, they're the ones who can be injured.
But, one of the things that I don't think
we always think about
are the other children who are at the farm.
You have worked hard to educate your own children
on what's safe and what's not.
But what about their friends who come over?
What about the children of your employees?
How many of you have employees who have families
who might visit the farm?
I know that's a concern of mine.
Sometimes there will be kids that just
show up at my farm, and I'm not sure how,
they're cousins of someone.
And so, those children are also at a lot of risk
and so we have to remember them as well.
It's not just your children,
it's the other children who are there.
And so this is really an important statistic.
80% of the children who are injured on farms,
were not working when the accident occurred.
That means they were small,
and they were not trained to do a job,
or they were a visitor or a bystander
to the job that was being performed.
This is important.
You've spent so much time teaching your own children
to be safe working on the farm.
They are at less risk
because of that time and dedication you have
put into them.
So keep in mind the other children.
And so, as you know, small children would be
counted as bystanders.
There's no age-appropriate task for a child less than six,
and so what we need to do is remember
that they are a bystander
and they are more likely to be injured.
75% of farm injury deaths in this age group,
zero to six, are result of a machinery accident
where they were nearby,
or they fell from a tractor.
Like I said about the fender,
riding on the fender.
Or drowning or suffocation.
You've heard about the kids playing
in the gravity box.
That would be an example of that.
When they're small
that just seems like such a great place to play.
And it's just not.
And so, what I would like to do is have
John come back up and
introduce to you a video and
I would just like to say that
John Quirk has really, really
put his passion into making sure that
this whole farm safety program is moving forward
with World Mutual Insurance,
and they have gone above and beyond.
This is not about selling insurance at all.
This is about helping all of you
keep the people at your farm safe,
and I really think that there's probably no one
more passionate about that than John.
He's really put his heart and soul into this.
And with that, I would like him to come back up here
and introduce a video.
- Well thanks, Laura.
The video is kind of a montage
of videos we have available for you
as part of our resources.
On our website on farm safety
we have about eight different
videos that are there.
One is completely about Moms and a Moms forum,
so I encourage you to take a look at that.
But this one is kid of a montage of all of it.
We're talking about three different farm families.
They're talking about their exposure with their kids
and what's happened to them
as far as the stories go.
We also have a little bit here from
Middleton EMS as a first responder on the scene
and what they deal with and go through.
And then we also have a person from the
Marsh Field Clinic,
the National Farm Safety Counsel
also talk a little bit, too.
I want to share this video with you.
(sentimental instrumental music)
(rooster calling)
- [Voiceover] Someone who works the land.
A hammer swings from a callous hand.
The backbone of the state.
Born and raised into this fate.
It's a proud tradition, a way of life.
Sons, daughters,
husband and wife.
With the family
to work, play and pray.
And the chance to do all the next day.
- We're the Kirk family.
- Welcome to our farm!
- The most rewarding part of farming
is seeing how your crops, you plant 'em,
they grow, you harvest 'em.
And then you feed 'em to the animals
and you see how the animals grow.
Sharing that with your family is amazing.
- [Voiceover] The rigors of farming place high demands.
Sometimes risk is out of their hands.
- I think the farming industry can be very dangerous
in many ways.
I think there's, all of the things in farming are
moving, have moving parts.
And one accident can cause major problems
for many people.
- Over the 20 years that I've been here in Middleton
and also previous to this, other areas in Wisconsin,
I've seen 20 or so different types of Agriculture-related,
farm-related incidents and many of them
not so serious, some very serious.
- [Voiceover] It takes a village to raise a child,
and a family to raise a farm.
The most important work,
keep them free from harm.
- In this old pig barn, we used to have pigs at this farm,
but then we went into dairy farming.
- He was up at the farm with my husband,
and he was near a green auger and he
went into the auger and accidentally
got his arm caught in the auger.
He's been great about it.
He never has complained,
anything like that, and he can do
just about anything.
He plays baseball, football.
He wrestles, he plays soccer,
and he loves to farm.
Even when he came home from the accident,
he even said, "Well, when can we go back to the farm?"
This was just the next day.
- A nine year old boy has died
after falling into a grain bin.
(pensive piano music)
- We went out there that day,
and we'd been out there probably for 2 1/2 hours.
We had just stopped
and he had had his first gooseberry
and first black-cap or black raspberry.
We stopped underneath a walnut tree
at that time and they picked the back end
of the raindrop with walnuts.
Just pullin' a little brush hog behind our Ranger,
no bigger than the width of the Ranger and
you gotta go real slow on it,
because anything over five miles an hour
and it wouldn't cut.
We just got around the corner,
probably had maybe two, three minutes left,
we'd be done for the day.
And the kids had behaved the entire day.
He stood up in the back of the Ranger
to grab a walnut as we passed,
and as he grabbed the walnut, he never let go.
And the walnut never came off the tree.
And it pulled him, and he stumbled off the back
of the four wheeler and
there's not much clearance on the bottom of those
brush hogs, so it rolled up on top of him, and
he went underneath it.
- Those who are impacted by it,
whether it's family members or co-workers,
either witness it, or are somehow involved in the rescue,
it also impacts them long term,
'cause they certainly have to remember
all of those things that they witnessed and saw
and all the events that took place.
- When they leave the house, I'll often say,
"Just be safe, be careful.
"Make sure you're walkin' with your head up,
"make sure you know where you're goin'
"and your surroundings,
"especially when we're doin' hay and stuff.
"There's a lot of equipment movin' around.
"Just be careful."
- So often, kids just think that they're above that,
or that they're invincible and
it's so easy to just not listen.
- I rode the tractor with my Dad and with
my Grandpa,
and we've had this discussion with my husband
on several times and I've got him convinced now
that he's not takin' our grandkids out anymore, either.
But it does tend to be something that people
view as a tradition.
But there's a whole lot of better traditions
that you can establish in your family,
whether it's playing with your kids with tractors
in the sandbox, or,
buying 'em ride on tractors, or taking 'em out
and having them help with these age-appropriate tasks.
- I think farming has changed in safety aspects because
the tractors are all cab now.
They have buddy seats with seat belts.
So I feel more comfortable with our kids
in the tractor, honestly, because I know that
when they're riding along their seat belt,
that if something would happen that
they'd be okay.
- We think it's a fantastic thing
for children to work on farms.
I grew up working on a farm,
it teaches you a great work ethic,
it teaches kids responsibility.
You develop that pride in being a farmer
or a farmer's child.
- We have Colton, our oldest, he's 11.
We have him do chores in the barn when the
dairy cattle aren't in there anymore.
He watches down the loading area.
He also helps bed the steers, which,
we do that when they're locked out of the building,
so that's a little bit safer.
Knowing where they are,
knowing what they're doing,
knowing what they're going to be doing,
and we run with walkie-talkies a lot, too.
So that we can talk with them and stay in
communication with them.
- That's part of the message and what we're trying to get
out here is in everything you do, safety is big.
- [Voiceover] We're really, really proud of our farmers.
We depend on you for food, for fuel,
for education, for entertainment.
And we think that farming is a great, great occupation.
We also know it's a very dangerous occupation.
We know that it's important that we keep that
next generation interested in farming
but also that we keep 'em safe.
- Farming is our future.
- [Voiceover] Kids may not remember the things you say,
but they're studyin' your actions every day.
Teach by example and do things right
to ensure a good sleep each and every night.
As a tribute to the generations before,
what you pass down will be much more
than the land, the buildings and the roads.
A farmer knows, you reap what you sow.
- It's hard work,
but it's as nice a life as you can find.
- Well, that's pretty powerful stuff.
I do have to thank the families.
'Cause every time I watch this,
it's still one of those that you kind of go,
"Oh my gosh, this happens."
And it's one of those where people always say,
"Well, it's not gonna happen to me.
"We're okay, it's not a big deal."
Well, on a split second,
it becomes a really, really big deal.
And one of the things that
we took back and we talked to the farm families,
especially the Breunigs and the Lendaskys
was the fact that they didn't want to do it at first.
They didn't want to do a video.
They said, "You know what,
"all people are gonna do is they're gonna blame us.
"They're gonna think we're really horrible parents
"to let these kind of things happen to our kids."
And we said, "That's okay.
"It's totally up to you and we understand."
But then, they came back to us and they said, "You know what,
"we have to tell the story.
"We have to tell the story.
"Because we can prevent one of these things
"from happening to another farm family,
"it's all worth it."
So I really am grateful for those families
to be able to share
and to do that kind of stuff along the way.
So it is.
But now, we're coming to the part of this thing
where we talk about audience participation.
And that's you folks
on audience participation.
One of the things that we, as an insurance company, do
is we go out and visit a lot of farms
and we take a lot of pictures.
And sometimes we take some very interesting pictures
that we want to talk about.
And today, I want to have a few folks
that I want to show you some pictures,
and I want you to tell me, first of all,
what is it a picture of?
You're all farmers, you'll know what the pictures are,
what might be the hazards that we might see
with those photos,
and what we might be able to do to
correct the situation.
Is everybody ready?
Are we ready?
- [Voiceover] We're ready, we're ready.
- Okay, thank you.
Here's the first one.
What is it?
Yeah, manure lagoon.
Any problems that you see with it?
No fence, very good.
Any other issues with it?
The other issue that we have with it
is that there aren't any barriers.
So as you're bringing equipment in,
and you're unloading,
if there's not a stop,
sometimes that equipment keeps right on going,
and sometimes the operator is still with
the equipment when it keeps on goin'.
We generally have a couple of those a year
that we wind up havin' to deal with.
Fortunately, most of 'em don't have the operator
still in 'em when they get into the lagoon,
but it does happen.
So again, yeah, the correction that would be taken
is obviously putting a fence around it.
In the wintertime, when it's covered with snow,
someone could very easily get into it.
Actually, we have a lives case where we had
one of our agents, a number of years back,
was on a farm, and walked around behind the farm,
and actually did go in to a lagoon.
Fortunately for him, the story was good,
we got him out, and he did okay.
And he was able to tell the story.
But again, you think about a child,
maybe friends of your kids that are runnin' around,
they may not see it, it's not protected with a fence,
it could be a really bad day.
So again, fencing is huge,
putting up stop barriers so that when you are
taking equipment in, and you're dumping things
into the lagoon, the vehicle actually has a stop there
so that it cannot slide in,
is one of the things that we're looking at.
Alright, next photo.
What do we have?
You got a manure spreader.
Any problems with it?
(murmuring)
The guard, yeah.
That's one of the things we want to talk about,
because whether this guard was intentionally removed,
or whether the guard just fell off
because of wear and tear,
that's one of the things we really want to make sure of
and it's part of the things on your assessment when you
take a look at things.
Especially this time of year, before we
get into the planting season and things get
really, really hectic for ya.
Now's the great time to check.
Check all the equipment, make sure the guards are in place.
If something is rattling and just about to fall off,
let's make sure we correct it so that
these type of things don't happen.
Obviously, when this thing is movin'
and that chain is movin' pretty fast,
you don't want to be near it.
And you definitely don't want to have any kind of
loose clothing in it to be brought into that sucker.
Because it's not a good day at that point,
it's gonna leave a mark.
Again, those are the kind of things on a prevention basis,
on just a routine maintenance basis,
that you want to make sure with your equipment
that everything is in its proper place
and that the guards are done.
And especially now, before we get into the planting season
and things gets really busy,
if we don't take that safety check and go forward with it.
And then we got this guy.
We know what this is?
Yeah, the PTO Power Take-Off.
And I'm sure that you have this conversation
with your kids and with everybody else
about never, ever, ever, ever,
ever, never cross that PTO.
I'm sure you do.
And I'm sure that as things get really busy,
and things get really crazy,
and there's something on the other side,
and you could walk all the way around it if you could,
or if you had the time to walk all the way around it,
but sometimes it's just easier to go across.
That's where problems can occur,
and especially with kids if they're close by,
again, when it's moving,
it takes no prisoners.
And it's one of those things that we
want to make sure of
that we have the right protection,
we have the right safety measures,
you have it ingrained in everybody that
not only do you not cross it,
you make sure it's turned off.
You make sure nobody's in the tractor to
accidentally turn it back on
when somebody's back there working on it.
You just want to make sure all those things are in place.
And now, I'm gonna bring Laura back up,
and we're gonna talk about a segment called Near Misses.
- Back to that manure spreader picture,
you know the one that doesn't have the guard on the back.
When John and I first started working together,
he showed me that picture, I'm like,
"That's the same spreader I have,
"and it looks exactly like that."
And I said, "That guard is really hard to keep on,
"'cause when you back up where we push off manure,
"it hits a wall every time."
And so, I'm happy to say that there is a guard on that now.
It is brand new and shiny and does not match
the rest of the spreader, that is for sure.
Through the work that I've been able to do with John,
and with Rural Insurance I have really
come to look at maintenance on equipment
in a whole different way.
The maintenance that you do on your equipment
is a farm safety program,
because if your equipment is functioning properly,
there will be less accidents.
My one example of that is my husband
was mixing feed and it just happened to be Mother's Day,
and he put the first bucket of feed into our mixer
and the bucket came off in the mixer,
and the mixer is empty, except for that one
bucket of feed.
So now we have a problem, right.
It's Sunday, I said it's Mother's Day,
we have to get that bucket out of there.
And I know the way that we did that was not very safe.
It involved me and the skid loader backing up
when he climbed in the mixer and wrapped a chain around it.
And my job was to back up until the bucket came out.
Well, as I'm backing up, and there's tension on the chain,
I had like geometry in school.
So I'm like, that bucket is going somewhere
and there's a lot of pressure on it.
It's comin' straight towards me in the skid loader.
And if we were thinking ahead, we would have taken
the glass door off, we didn't do that.
But it did, it came out and it,
as I was backing up I kept thinking,
"These side braces are really strong
"on this skid loader."
I'm convincing myself.
Really we should have just stopped
and figured out a safer way to do that.
It did smash back into me
and the glass all fell on me and I was fine,
other than very, very scared.
But, it's just an example of how when we're in a hurry
and we're goin' fast, things can happen.
Have you had some of those times at your dairy
or your farm, when you know
you just should have slowed down.
You just should have slowed down
and it would have been safer.
And so, back to the maintenance.
That bucket was loose.
We knew it was getting loose,
and we should have fixed it
before it came off on the inside of the TMR mixer.
I do want you to start thinking about
your own near misses.
If you have been farming long enough,
there has been a day where you have
looked back at it and really understood
how lucky you were that
everyone came through that day alive.
Because it's part of farming that we
push a little too hard and we make decisions on the fly
and it's a hard business.
Real accidents do happen.
And so, I want to share with you another story
to get you thinking about your near misses on your farm.
This one has to do with my daughter, Julia
and it was about seven years ago.
She was four, not quite five.
And I can remember, she and I were working on mixing
calf bottles, and so we were in the milk house.
And we have a glass door where you can
look out towards where we mix feed.
But it's kind of a little bit around the corner.
And so, my husband was out there in the skid loader,
mixing feed, it was a morning, again.
And Julia was right by my side.
It was winter, I can remember we had winter hats
and winter coats on.
And I was busy.
And you know, okay, we're Moms, right,
we have our eye on them most of the time
but then we always get that time when our heart drops,
when they were just right here,
and now we can't find them.
And so, I look around, I'm like,
oh, she's not here.
And so I went out the door
and I will never, ever forget,
because she was walking straight towards my husband
in the skid loader.
And we have a big skid loader and it,
there's no way he could ever hear her.
She had her winter hat on,
so she couldn't here me screaming her name
at the top of my lungs.
And I ran and picked her up and she was about
five feet away from him.
And I'll just never forget that moment and how close it was
and it didn't matter that I had told her so many times
she could not go anywhere near the skid loader
when Dad was driving it, he can't hear you,
he can't see you.
It didn't matter, that still happened.
And so, I can still remember shaking her hard
by the shoulders and telling her
she can never do that again.
And so, I know you've had those moments.
I want you to think about it because I believe that
our near misses, that those days
when something didn't happen that could have,
those are our reminders
that we need to remember to be safe
and slow down, because as Moms,
many times we're the ones who are the voice
of farm safety at our farms.
And so, don't discount that.
Remember that.
(crowd murmuring)
But also, we are also lucky,
because farming is dangerous and hard work.
And we accept some of those risks
because we absolutely love what we do.
And so next, I would like to have
Cathy Mess come forward.
And I want to start out by just saying
I am so happy that she is as brave
as she is.
She's never been one at a loss for words,
and as you might know, Carrie Mess is her daughter in law,
and Carrie's never at a loss for words, either.
And so, what we're going to do is have Cathy share
her story with all of you.
And so Cathy, if you just kind of want to
walk us through, I think it was in July that the day.
- July sixth.
I did the cow feeding on the farm,
which was skid loader into the TMR on a truck.
I forgot to go check to see how much feed
was in front of the cows,
and got up there with the full load and,
tons of feed left, what am I gonna do?
Went back, parked the truck,
and got out and
being out of the routine, forgot to set the emergency brake.
And just as I got out it started to roll
and so I tried to hop back in.
And the rear duals ran over my leg.
I tried yelling a couple of times,
and then went, "What are you doing?
"Nobody's gonna hear you here on the farm."
So, went for my phone.
Couldn't find my phone,
then realized I couldn't find my pocket
that the phone was in.
And yeah it was gone.
And I looked up and around and there was my boot
with something red sticking out of it
and a little further, there was my phone.
I didn't look back at the boot, no.
I crawled up to the phone and I called 911
and I was so,
there's a whole lot of luck, 'cause
we have an EMT that lives two miles down the road.
He happened to be getting into his truck
when the call went out.
And he got to the farm.
He didn't know where I was,
'cause my husband was on the other side of the shed
and he's like, "Where's the accident?"
Well, my husband had no idea
that there was an accident.
But, yeah, to me it seemed like he got there right away.
My son was in the barn milking.
He has friends on the fire department and so
somebody said, "You have to get out there.
"There's been an accident."
I had to see him run up
and then stop
and take a couple steps backwards in shock.
And I was awake for a little while longer
as firemen and everybody showed up.
But then eventually I passed out,
whether shock or loss of blood, I'm not sure.
Was so, so fortunate
that that EMT happened to be getting into his truck,
was so, so fortunate that my phone,
I had a flip phone.
The phone survived getting ripped out of my pants
and flying through the air.
It still worked.
Just a whole lot of luck
right up to that point.
I don't know what happened after that
because I was out for a couple weeks
in total, I had 13 surgeries.
I think eight of 'em were in that first,
well maybe 10 or 11 were in the first two weeks.
And just, let's see,
don't know what else to say.
- [Laura] Tell us about your family, and just,
how all of this, from your perspective, Cathy,
how it affected them and the farm and
one layer out from you,
how your accident affected the way of life.
- It was, for them it was very hard.
My husband just didn't know how to deal with it.
He just couldn't fathom it.
One of the best things that everybody did
was everybody took turns coming in to see me.
I was in the hospital four and a half to five months
and there was always somebody
coming in to see me so that I got to see somebody
every day.
Another great piece of fortune.
We had a brother in,
my husband's brother in law
had been laid off a couple years ago.
He came out and he took over the house
and he had meals ready for everyone
and he did the running around, picking up
things that they needed.
We had lots of neighbors that came over
and the morning I got hurt,
the neighbors came over and did the milking.
We have one neighbor down the road has
10 kids in the family and
I don't know if it was the same day or the day after,
but he called a safety meeting.
Got everybody in and sat 'em down for a safety meeting.
Yeah, I can't think of anything else.
It's one of those things
you know you shouldn't do,
but get caught in the moment.
It just takes a second to forget what you're doin'.
- [Laura] Give us an update on
what's happening now with you.
- Yes, they are working on a prosthesis for me
and I actually got to try it on
a week ago, and walk with it a little.
'Course on parallel bars, but I got to walk with it
a little bit and that was a lot of fun,
that was kinda nice.
I was surprised how well I did.
Especially since I'm supposed to be exercising on the walker
and all that stuff.
It just is fun, so fun.
I was really anxious to get home,
but discovered that home means.
In the hospital there's a nurse or a doctor
or even the cleaning person in the room
every hour at least.
And at home, they're busy out in the field
and you got nobody around for
maybe eight hours.
So (sighs with frustration), no.
Yeah, I'm looking very forward,
I can drive.
It's just a little problem of getting into the car.
(laughing)
I'm hoping that I'll be able to do a few more things
once I get the prosthesis going.
There's a whole lot of,
being in the hospital for five months is
kind of interesting in itself, but,
not fun.
- [Laura] Cathy, do you have any advice
to give those of us out there who
day in and day out are
maybe in a role very similar to yours?
- My mistake was stepping out of my routine.
That was my mistake was stepping out of my routine,
'cause I wasn't rushing or anything,
except for the fact of trying to get back in the truck.
Yeah, and as far as,
one of the saving graces is the family coming
to see you every day.
To have somebody there all the time
to make sure you're okay.
In fact, my daughter-in-law over the first month,
month and a half, she was my bulldog.
She kept track of what was going on with the surgeries
and that kind of thing--
until she had Silas. (laughs)
- [Laura] Let's give Cathy
just a tremendous round of applause.
(applause)
- I'm sure there's more I wanted to say
but right now it's just gone.
- [Laura] That usually happens,
the lights are really bright.
And so, what I hear from Cathy is
we were so lucky, we were fortunate,
can you hear that?
Did you hear how many times she said that?
And so, your story is so compelling to all of us,
and your bravery and the way you look back on it
and see the good
of the EMT being so close,
of the way your family came together,
your story is inspirational, Cathy, so,
thanks once again for sharing your story with us.
One more round of applause for Cathy.
(applause)
- [Cathy] I'm gonna add some.
- [Laura] Okay, and with that, I'm gonna have John come
and we're gonna transition over to a little bit more
on that Farm Safety Assessment.
You all received a copy of that,
so go ahead and pull that out.
- Once again, the insurance part of me
is gonna come out, and that's what the
Farm Safety Assessment is all about.
When we go out and take a look at your farm,
these are the things that we're looking for.
We talk about the emergency preparedness,
all the hazard assessments that are going on,
the working surfaces,
the ladders, the electrical, the fire safety,
the farm machinery.
Basically we're going through that checklist
and taking a look.
I encourage you, take it with you,
use it as a guide,
because if you're able to go through that
and check things off,
chances are that you have a very safe operation.
Now, obviously we can't guarantee 100% of the time
that you're never gonna have an incident.
I'm sure Cathy never thought she would have
an incident, either.
But it does happen.
But what I can tell you is that,
if you do follow it, and you are able to check
most of these things off,
chances are, the likelihood of you having it
is greatly reduced.
And again, if you have a chance
to jot down one or two things
that you want to take a look at.
Maybe it's making sure those guards are in place.
Making sure that thing that's been rattling around forever
is finally secure.
Maybe it's, you know what, we gotta make sure that
we have not 20 extension cords plugged in
to the electrical box, running around all over the place,
we may have to get it rewired just a little bit
to make that happen.
Maybe it's something like that that you can jot down
and say, "I'm gonna check it when I get back home."
That's all really good stuff that you can work with.
And then we want to think about the impact
that you have.
There's a number that I have and Cathy probably has
a really, really big number
based on the fact that she was in the hospital for
four or five months.
But the one number that I come away with is $143,580.
Anybody know what that number is?
$143,580.
That number represents 10 days in the hospital.
That's in the hospital.
That's not the docs, it's not the nurses,
it's not the meds.
That's the hospital.
It can add up really, really fast.
And I'm sure that Cathy's bill is in the seven figures
when you take a look at it on an itemized basis.
So again, it can be really, really expensive.
We all know of a smaller organization
by the name of OSHA.
If you would happen to have an employee
with a fatality, I can guarantee you they're gonna
come and say hi.
And generally it's not a social visit that
they're going to do.
Again, it can have a major impact on you.
And then, of course, there's organizations like us.
We also are kinda curious as to how come,
what happened?
And the implications on your insurance can be significant.
They can be increases in your premium,
or they can be cancellations, because of what happened.
Again, take the assessment,
take it home with ya, take a look at it,
discuss it with your family,
discuss it with your employees,
and make sure that things are in shape and ready to go.
And I'll have Laura come in,
I know we're at the end of our time to talk,
but I want Laura to wrap it up for us, as well.
So here's Laura.
- Just real quick, we're at the end of our time.
Once again, I want to extend my gratitude to Cathy
because I think that this, for me,
will be memorable
and I think hopefully for all of you
and you go home and you think about ways
that you can make the culture of your farm
still based on all the great traditions that we have,
still based on having your children be able to work
with you side by side,
but maybe think about changing some of those traditions
that aren't quite as safe.
And also just think about making safety
part of the culture, part of the values
of your farm
for your family, but also for the example that you can set
for so many other farms.
Thank you on behalf of both John and I for your time
and attention today,
and enjoy the rest of the summit.
(applause)