Farm life can be dangerous. We know the hazards and risks that come with running equipment. But because these activities make up part of our everyday life, they become less daunting in our minds. Every one of my four children has ridden with me on tractors, skid steers and other equipment, against my better judgement. Sometimes, we need to remind ourselves to be more cautious when working. That’s why we are starting to share occasional safety videos—simple reminders from our community to help everyone stay a little safer on the farm.
Around the time we were planning this safety content, a dear member of our poultry community tragically lost his precious, four-year-old daughter to an accident on the farm. This broke our hearts as it did everyone else who heard the story. After reading his post, I, like many of you, reached out to Kaleb to assure him of our prayers. We talked about the importance of safety on the farm, and I shared that we were planning to add safety videos to our Poultry Biosecurity content. Kaleb allowed us to share his story with you in the hopes that it will help as many “farm families” as possible avoid the tragedy he and his family are now walking through.
He shared the heart wrenching details of having to provide life-saving techniques to his daughter while trying to give directions over the phone to an unmarked field where he and his daughter were located. In the days after, Kaleb’s encouragement to this tight community of growers was not only to be aware of everything you do, but also make a priority of ensuring all of your properties have the E911 marker. Here’s the picture of his well-marked land now:
Please don’t watch the video or read this blog post without taking action. Do everything you can to clearly mark your land before, God forbid, tragedy strikes. Please pray for Kaleb and his precious family as they deal with this loss. We thank them for sharing this tragedy in the hopes of possibly saving someone else a heartache.
If you have any suggestions for safety topics we should cover in the future, please connect with me, Allen Reynolds, at 800-608-3755 or allen@southlandorganics.com.