A sad accident happened on a farm in Dawson County, Nebraska. A 57-year-old farmer named James Harrison was driving his big green tractor. It was about 2:15 in the afternoon when he lost control of the tractor, and it rolled over. Sadly, he died because of this accident.
The police looked into what happened and found out that James's tractor didn't have important safety features. There was no working Roll-Over Protective Structure (ROPS) and no seatbelt. They also found that the steering on the tractor wasn't in good shape, and it hadn't been repaired for a long time.
Accidents like this happen more often than we think. The National Safety Council says that 44% of all farm deaths each year are because of tractor accidents. In Nebraska, there were 17 deaths from tractor accidents in 2022, which is 23% more than the year before.
James was a farmer for many years and had a big farm where he grew wheat. He had six workers helping him. James leaves behind his wife, Margaret, and their three grown-up kids who also worked on the farm.
Now, the local police and the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) are investigating to see if the tractor broke or if there was a mistake made by James. This sad event has made the Nebraska Farm Bureau want to make farming safer by asking for better safety rules for tractors.
