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OMAHA (DTN) -- While National Farm Safety and Health Week wraps up on Sept. 27 in the United States, farms and ranches continue to be very busy and dangerous places to live and work.

Upper Midwest Agricultural Safety and Health Centre (UMASH) offers valuable tips and sobering advice that remind all of us that safety should be a year-round goal, not just for certain days or weeks on the calendar when there are more farm machinery and vehicles on the move. (https://umash.umn.edu/…)

Several DTN staff have shared this year -- and in past years -- about close calls or tragedies on their farms as well as those affecting people they know. (See Senior Livestock Editor Jennifer Carrico's blog https://www.dtnpf.com/…) and Senior Crops Editor Pamela Smith's blog https://www.dtnpf.com/….)

Seems like a lot of us originally from farms or still living on farms or ranches have a bit too many "close call" stories we sometimes share with others or maybe have never told anyone else.

Perhaps, if we shared those stories more, they can drive the lesson home that farm dangers are everywhere, accidents can happen to anyone, they can happen any time, and we need to take more steps to prevent them and protect ourselves as well as people we love and care about.

There is actually a Telling The Story Project, with the goal of "Tell a story, save a life" online at https://tellingthestoryproject.org/…. From the site, it explains "We're creating injury prevention messages that highlight personal stories and first-hand experiences. Who are the storytellers? Farmers, agricultural workers, and family and community members who've been impacted by injuries, fatalities, or close calls.

"Told in their own words, their experiences provide valuable information to learn what went wrong and how to prevent similar incidents. The common thread is 'We don't want this to happen to anyone else.'"

So, because I don't want this to happen to anyone else, I've decided to share some of my own past experiences.

THE RUNNING OF THE BULL

1. When I was still very young, not yet attending school, my older brother -- three years older -- coaxed me one day to go into the pasture with him and then began to tease the cattle. Unfortunately, there was also a bull with the cattle. The bull took a quick disliking of two young kids in his domain and began to chase us. I think this was the fastest I have ever ran in my life as I sprinted towards the barbed wire fence ahead. When you are a little kid, the advice to escape a bull can be the same as escaping a fire. When you get to the fence, "stop, drop and roll." Stop at the fence, drop on the ground, roll quickly under the fence.

As an adult, I don't think I can roll under that fence anymore without getting caught in the barbs. Or run fast enough to avoid being gored and trampled by an angry bull.

My brother, pumped on adrenaline, thought this adventure was great fun.

I decided we would never mention it to my parents, but I was a lot more cautious around cattle in the future and didn't go where I shouldn't be.

THE FLYING TRUCK

2. Going to school in a rural area, our teachers sometimes were a bit more lenient about us sometimes taking time off to do "farm chores" -- things like "helping with harvest" or "going for machinery parts" took precedent over sitting in a classroom. There was a family where two of the sisters were friends with me -- one a year older than me, one a year younger. It was during the busy harvest season when they needed to go to "the big city" about 100 miles away from our school to get machinery parts for their dad. They coaxed me to go along with them. Somehow, our parents as well as our teachers allowed us three teenage girls to take the day off from school to do this.

We all had our drivers' licenses, but the youngest girl wanted more practice driving. So, we let her. Imagine three teenage girls in a half-ton truck, singing loudly to the radio, driving a bit too fast down a heavily graveled, very dusty road that has a few hills and ... as we came to the top of one of the biggest hills, we suddenly met up with a vehicle coming from the opposite direction.

That other driver was also going too fast and stuck stubbornly near the middle of the road.

My friend swerved our vehicle to the right to avoid hitting the other vehicle. The other truck sped off, leaving us in dust so thick we could barely see the road. My friend desperately tried to control her dad's truck. It sharply veered to the left in all the loose gravel, then back to the right. The next thing we knew, we were moving at high speed into the ditch which then arced us into the air. For what seemed an eternity, we flew -- all wheels off the ground -- over a field. At one point the truck seemed to lean a certain way and threatened to roll, but somehow at the last second we hit hard with all four wheels at roughly the same time into the field. We managed to bring the vehicle to a stop.

Still shaking, we all looked at each other. None of us were hurt. We glanced at the back of the truck. We didn't lose anything.

But it then struck us what we were carrying. Some tools. A mix of old and new machinery parts. And a big, external tank of gas just behind the truck cab.

After a few minutes of calming ourselves down, we drove off that field, headed home, and swore to never tell anyone about what happened.

Even decades later, every single time I drive past that spot, I think about how three teenage girls were very lucky and how much worse things could have been. And I always slow down, keep an eye over the hill especially on dusty roads, and make sure I don't swerve in the gravel.

SHIFTING PRIORITIES DURING FIRE

3. Now for the second fastest time I ever ran in my life. It began with my younger brother and I taking out a box of food late in the evening to my dad at harvest time. It was already dark. I was driving the old one-ton truck, with its manual transmission, grinding the gears probably a bit too much. We were on a gravel road, less than a half mile from Dad in the field, when I happened to glance down to where the long gear stick met the dusty, oil stained floor and where normally we could see bits of the gravel road slide under us through small gaps on either side of the stick shift.

But something quickly sparked my attention. An orange glow instead of the usual blurry gravel road. And then I realized it was flames. There was a fire underneath the truck.

I quickly slammed the brakes. I don't remember if I downshifted first before I shut the truck motor off, but I do remember yelling at my brother that we needed to run away as fast as we can. And, to show you this panicked teenager's state of mind, I admit the one thing I grabbed from the truck: the box of food for my dad.

There I was, awkwardly running down the dark road on a moonless night, hanging on dearly to the cardboard box with small round metal containers, plates and silverware clanging against each other.

I finally stopped running. And that was when I realized my brother, four years younger than me, wasn't with me.

I glanced back, just in time to the flames fizzle out as my brother calmly climbed out from under the truck. He had tossed a couple Mason jars of water and cold coffee to extinguish the flames while I ran down the road. He now patiently waited for me to return to the truck.

I slowly walked back, still clinging to the box of food.

Meanwhile, in the grain field in the distance, I could see the lights of my dad's combine slowly rolling its way through the swaths.

So, the next question was ... what do we do now?

I knew I did NOT want to start the truck up again nor drive it. And my younger brother was much too young to drive. It was also too far and dark for us to walk across the field to my dad. Dad's combine was now flashing lights to show us Dad had a loaded hopper and he was waiting for the truck. We put on flashing lights on our truck on the road to keep people from hitting it.

We stood there, contemplating what to do, when we finally saw a vehicle coming down the road. We flagged down the strangers, and asked if they could please drive us in their car across the field to get our dad?

Fortunately, they did. We were lucky their car didn't start a fire crossing dry wheat stubble on the field. The kind strangers also drove my dad, my brother and I back to our abandoned truck.

Dad thanked our good Samaritans, told them they could leave and then he calmly climbed into the truck cab and told my brother and I to also get in. Dad drove the truck down the road, through the field, up to the combine and started to unload the hopper of grain into the truck. While he did that, he ate his supper and asked at one point if there was any more water left in the truck for him.

When the truck was full of grain, Dad shut off the combine, got us back in the truck, and he drove us back to the farm to dump our load into a bin.

The whole time I was in that truck as Dad drove it, we were all quiet. I stared down at the floor and feared more flames would erupt. None did.

But I swear for the next few years, whenever I had to drive that old green truck, I spent half my time looking at the road ahead and half the time glancing at the floor, just in case. I always double checked if the parking brake was off, learned to shift gears smoother, and I also carried extra water. A lot of extra water. As my brother got older and helped more with the farm, I noticed he carried fire extinguishers around on the farm machinery and trucks.

My family never talked again about the truck fire. I never forgot about it though.

So, lessons learned? Don't hang out in pastures and think you will always outrun a bull. Teach your kids not to do that either. Don't speed on gravel roads and always be aware other traffic might be just over those hills. Stress this to your teenagers and their friends. Also, don't panic in an emergency. Have a plan and prepare for what to do in case there is a sudden fire on your farm vehicle or equipment. Be aware of where everyone is and make sure everyone is safe. Your loved ones should take priority over saving a meal in a cardboard box.

And, most importantly, think every day of how to improve overall safety on the farm, in every situation. Instead of never admitting what happened, share the stories of your close calls and why you are so grateful that you survived and could tell others what lessons you learned.

Elaine Shein can be reached at elaine.shein@dtn.com

Follow her on social platform X @elaineshein

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