Editors' Notebook

REDFIELD, Iowa (DTN) -- Each year during harvest season, I am reminded of an event from my childhood that leads to my support and promotion of farm safety. National Farm Safety and Health Week is a good time to share my story.

I grew up on my family farm in Iowa and still live there today. In the fall, during harvest, my brother and I always liked to help, or what we thought was helping. Because of our ages at the time of this event, it wasn't much more than opening a gate or helping to deliver lunch to the field.

On this fall day in 1981, my brother and I decided to climb up on the top of the gravity-flow wagon while it was unloading and watch as the grain leaked down into the hopper to then go up the auger into the grain bin. I'm sure at the time, our minds thought it was a safe place.

We sat up there chatting away. We knew better than to throw any grain at each other because we would get into trouble for wasting the corn our cows needed to eat. My grandpa was down below, and Dad was hauling another wagon in from the field.

I laughed when my foot started going down with the corn and pulled it back out. We chatted a bit more, and then it happened again. This time, I couldn't get my foot back out. Quickly, I was sucked in to my knee, and my brother could see I was in trouble. He climbed down from the wagon to get my grandpa's attention and tell him I needed help.

A lot of the rest of the event is a little bit fuzzy. I remember my grandpa locking his arms around my chest under my arms. He held me there while my brother ran to get my dad. Grandpa wasn't in the best of health and didn't have the strength to pull me out. When my dad arrived, the grain had fallen to a lower level, and my dad could pull me out. It was definitely the scariest moment of my childhood, and I'm very thankful my family was nearby to help save my life that day.

A few years later, a boy from a town less than 25 miles away died when he was sucked into the grain of a gravity-flow wagon, which led to his mom starting the organization Farm Safety 4 Just Kids. The Iowa-based organization educated thousands about the risks on a farm and how to prevent any more incidents such as mine.

In 2016, that organization became part of the Progressive Ag Safety Day Program, which was born out of our own Progressive Farmer magazine in the 1990s. Resources from that group can be found here: https://www.progressiveag.org/….

So, during harvest, and all year, my message is to be careful on the farm. There are so many risks we, as farmers and ranchers, face every day on the farm. While some accidents likely can't be prevented, many can. And teach your children about the risks around the farm.

I was lucky to have someone there when I needed it who could help me in my time of need.

Jennifer Carrico can be reached at jennifer.carrico@dtn.com

Follow her on social platform X @JennCattleGal

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