Neil from Messick's here today to have a conversation with you regarding safety. Specifically on skid steers. We're going to take a break from the usual fun feature function attachment-type stuff that we often do and spend a little bit of time talking about safety today. It is with disturbing regularity that you will see things in our local news about people or bystanders being injured on or around equipment, so today we're going to talk about a couple of things in relation to this skid steer. Some of the things that you may want to look out for.
Some of the most common injuries that we hear on skid steers is not to the operator that's sitting on the machine. It's very often the bystanders and, unfortunately, very often involving children which is pretty heartbreaking. When you are the operator of one of these machines, the sight lines out of the unit are not great, unfortunately. Many years of iterations of equipment has improved visibility out of a skid steer, but you're never going to get over the fact that you've got a large engine in the back, booms coming down the side of the cab, and it's just a hard machine to see out of.
You want to be very aware, when you are the operator in that machine, of your surroundings. What other people are you working around? It's also really good if you're in an agricultural setting, you got family around, you never know what direction that the kids are going to come from, that they're aware of the right way to approach the machine. It's something you definitely want to look out for.
We're very happy to see backup cameras becoming more common equipment on this. Our parts department stocks them that you can add to any machine. Worth the couple-hundred-dollar investment to protect your family, but on newer equipment now, with some of the bigger digital displays, you're seeing things like this backup camera now becoming standard equipment. Hopefully, that might help you catch a person who may be standing behind the machine before you accidentally back into them.
On the topic of having kids around machines, I have taken my own children, set them on my lap, seatbelted them in here with me, and that can feel quite safe, actually, if you're out driving around. You've got a kid, they're strapped in with you, where are they going to go? If you've got a cab door, you can swing that door shut and they're contained in here with you.
As far as kids around machinery goes, that always has felt pretty safe to me before, but I did see one thing before that was really concerning to me. You've got this boom that goes up and down in front of the machine, and if you've got a machine that has a roll-up door on it or no cab at all, it's very easy for a kid to put their feet out the front of the machine here and get caught by the boom as it goes up and down.
I sure would hate to see somebody have their own kid maimed in that way while they're sitting on their lap. Something you want to keep an eye out for. Make sure that you don't have any feet, appendages, hanging out a side window if you've removed the glass or the mesh, or your feet sticking out the front where that boom can catch somebody.
That boom can cause a lot of other trouble. Potential damage to your machine or to yourself. There are definitely cases where you might want to open a door or get out of a machine with the boom raised. Now, obviously, if I were to drop that right now, it's going to break my door which is a bad thing, but it can also injure a person as well. If you've got a machine that has mechanical hand and foot controls and you go to step out of a machine with that boom up, it's very easy to step on one of the pedals and hydraulically drop that boom.
Many skid steers, including this New Holland, have a latch down here at the bottom that if you need to get out of a machine with the boom up, you could throw the latch and extend some pins. They're going to catch that boom and keep it from dropping down. If you have to, there is an extra step here, a safety function that can make that a little bit safer. Now, I still wouldn't encourage it because you still have an attachment on a skid steer coupler up here above you.
We all know that skid steer couplers can sometimes engage but not fully grab the attachment, particularly ones in a skid steer that are hydraulically operated that you don't have a great sight line down to the pins to know that they dropped in properly. Keep in mind that you may still be stepping out underneath of a bucket or another attachment that's not fully engaged on your skid steer couplers. Anytime this boom is up in the air, it is a hazard to you or anyone around you.
One thing that you may not think about when you go to operate a machine like this is how to get out of the cab in the case of some kind of accident. Now, if you have a unit that has the bucket partway up, and you go to try to open this door to get out, you can get stuck behind the door. You're not able to swing it open with the boom up and out of the way. In the case that that happens, the weather stripping can be removed from a rear window in order to climb out over top of the engine compartment.
In the case of, say, a fire, you're going to want to do that really, really quickly. If you see smoke in the cab, you're going to want to be out the back as quickly as possible. Say in the case that you happen to dump the machine forward. These machines are extremely capable, can lift a lot of weight, but as you start driving, and you're moving over varying terrain, it is possible for a machine to tip forward.
In the case that that happens, again, if your load and your boom is up a little bit higher, you can get stuck behind the door and need to exit in an untraditional kind of manner. We have had customers do this before in cases where machines have caught fire or they've dumped the unit over into a pond or some kind of water, knowing your exit points from the machine can be important, potentially save your life. Nearly every salesperson at Messick's can tell you a story of a time that we went to get onto a wet or snowy piece of equipment and had a terrible fall doing so.
When you go to step into a machine like a skid steer, your path is obstructed. You are stepping over top of buckets, over top of the boom, to be able to get up into the machine. You're going to notice handholds all over these units, here on the outside of the boom, here on the inside of the cab, some places around the door here that you can grab a hold of, but also take a moment and look at your attachments as well.
It is worth thinking about getting in and out of these machines when you select their attachments because they are not all constructed in the same way. Better buckets are going to have steps up on top of them. There are pallet forks available for skid steers that are step-through pallet forks that leave room for you to be able to step around the frame and safely get into the machine, so keep that in mind. These metal surfaces are super slick when they're wet and snowy, and every one of us has got the bumps and bruises to show for it.
It can be extremely tempting to use your equipment as a work platform. If you need to be able to reach up into a tree or work on the side of your house or your barn, it's awfully tempting to put a person in the bucket and lift them up so that they can reach that thing that needs to be worked on. That is really a dangerous thing to do, largely because it's really challenging in order to be able to keep this platform stable enough that you're not going to cause somebody to lose their balance while you're lifting them up and down.
Not a good idea, not a safe thing to do. Really, if you think about it, the lift height of most of this equipment is not a whole heck of a lot more than a good extension ladder, so take the time, grab a good ladder before you go and put a person in the bucket of a piece of equipment. We see way too many headlines in relation to people getting hurt around equipment. Specifically, skid steers and track loaders being some of the most dangerous.
When you take a moment and sit down in that seat, just take that time to have a state of mind that says, "What can go wrong here?" If sitting down and doing that prevents a close call, you're going to be happy for that. Many of us have had those experiences where we've been a little too close to injury for ourselves or somebody else, and those memories, man, do they burn into your head. It's best just to avoid them altogether.
Follow these couple of simple things by keeping them in the back of your mind and maybe you'll keep yourself or somebody else out of trouble. If you're shopping for a piece of equipment and we can help, or if you have parts or service needs for a machine that you've got at home, give us a call at Messick's. We're available at 800-222-3373 or online at messicks.com.
Neil from Messick's here out today at my father-in-law's house. We're helping him out a little bit here today. The transmission belt tore on his mower in the middle of cutting his grass. He's got a big swath here left over that I'm over here helping him take care of today with my mower. You can see here that his yard is a challenge to mow. It's fantastic for sledding in the winter time, but a bear to take care of here during the summer to get the grass taken care of. So we're going to do a little bit of talking while we're out here cutting his grass today, about mowing on a hillside. There are safe ways to try to keep yourself from riding down the hill and also a couple of techniques that you can use that if your mower does break loose and slide, to help to recover a little bit from a dangerous situation. Come along here with me today, as we do a little bit of good this afternoon.
Cutting grass on a hillside is no joke. You may think you're just out-cutting a lawn, but actually, this could be deceptively dangerous. This one's a little bit personal to me because about 10 years ago, I actually had a customer kill himself on a Zero Turn mower. A gentleman was out on a hillside, the machine, slid down the hill and went over the top of an embankment, which was ultimately his end, unfortunately. There are a couple of things that you could do out here to keep yourself a little bit safer. We're going to talk today a little bit about the ways to go up and down a hill safely maybe when you're traversing one across the sides and techniques to keep yourself stuck to the side of the hill, and if the machine does break loose and slide. A couple of the techniques that you can use to hopefully drive out of it safely.
Kevin lost his leg in an accident involving a PTO shaft. He shares his story and how to keep a safety-conscious mindset to prevent injuries like his own.
Be careful of your foot placement when working with your loader. If you put your loader into float and then remove the bucket with your skid loader, it may drop leaving you with an unfortunate injury.
