Round Hay Baler Injury: Gary's Story

One Saturday morning, the baling twine on his large round baler broke and would not feed itself through the compression rollers. Since this was a critical component of the round hay baler's operation, he was forced to dismount the tractor and walk back to the baler to manually feed the twine into the rollers. While doing this, and despite his vigilance, his left arm was pulled into the belts of the upper portion of the baler, causing both a serious crushing injury and the de-gloving or removal, of the skin from his arm. Although he was eventually able to yank his left arm out before it could be traumatically amputated, the torque of this motion caused his body to twist around, jamming his right arm directly into the rollers held together by eight hundred pounds of compression.

Over a period of approximately ninety minutes, Gary suffered the slow, painful grinding amputation of his right arm, just below the bicep. The only reason his entire body was not pulled into the machine was pure self-determination. The owner of the field came home and noticed the blowing dirt and hay from the stationary tractor in the field. His investigation saved Gary's life. When the emergency medical technicians arrived, it required a “Jaws of Life” and several individuals to separate the compression rollers. As a result of the injuries he received from the baler, our client has no right arm and a left arm with no more than twenty percent function. He became one hundred percent occupationally disabled at the age of 42.