While the number of farm-related deaths in 2014 is up from 2013, the trend line since 1970 is downward, according to the Purdue Agricultural Safety and Health Program study.(Contributed)
With farmers heading to the field for one of the two really busy seasons during the year, Purdue University released its annual survey of farm fatalities on Wednesday, showing the number of farm-related deaths as increasing from 2014.
While the data showed an increase in deaths from 18 in 2013 to 25 last year, the trend line in farm fatalities is downward. In 2012, 26 died with 16 in 2011, 23 in 2011 and 20 in 2010. All deaths on the farm last year were males.
The only area related farm fatality came Sept. 18, 2014 in Rush County where a 56-year-old man died when his tractor overturned.
Franklin County tied for sixth highest number of farm deaths with 16. Since 1980, Fayette County has had two farm related fatalities and one of those is questionable as to being on a farm. Wayne County has had 10 deaths, Henry and Rush counties have had seven and Union County had three.
The trend line goes from about 42 in 1970 to 17 in 2014. The lowest year for farm-related deaths came in 2006 with eight deaths while the high came in 1982 with 54 deaths.
Contributing to that lower trend since 1970, according to authors Bill Field and Yaun-Hsin Cheng, is the lower number of people employed on farms, improved safety features on the new machinery and reduced dependency on child and other youth labor.
Field is the Purdue Extension safety specialist while Cheng is an agricultural and biological engineering graduate research assistant.
“Achieving zero incidents may be an unrealistic goal, but the record clearly shows that something is working and many tragic incidents have been prevented during the same time as Indiana farmers have become more productive and efficient than at any time in history,” the authors said.
Emergency services responses to farm accidents have also improved greatly over the years resulting in a lower fatality rate. While they may survive the accident, many accidents result in permanent injury to the farmer that were once fatal. often resulting in extremely high medical costs to the family, they indicated.
The estimated fatality rate of 17.5 per 100,000 Indiana farm employees in 2014 is compared to an estimated national death rate of 25.4 per 100,000.
Eight of the 2014 fatalities involved overturned tractors with 16 involved with farm machinery of some kind. Other causes of fatalities were burning brush, barn fires, asphyxiation from smoke inhalation, head injury from livestock, falling trees and an accidental drowning.
Two people under 21 died in the ag workplace, continuing a decline in deaths of children and young adults, they said. There were 17 deaths of people more than 60, which also continues a trend of that age group accounting for a disproportionate number of deaths. The average age of all farm victims for 2014 was 62.4, which is higher than the average age of farmers in Indiana – 58.
Elkhart and LaGrange counties in northern Indiana lead the list of deaths since 1970 with 28. Those two counties also have a very high population of Amish that historically have accounted for a disproportionate share of farm-related fatalities.
Indiana has the third largest Amish community in the nation and that group tends to have a a larger than average number of children per household and they often work on the farm.
Over the past 15 years, Purdue Extension, Indiana Rural Safety and Health Council and others have undertaken an aggressive effort to raise awareness level within the Amish community of the hazards identified through data collection. The effort also includes education and promotion of safety equipment on buggies and Amish equipment on highways, they said.
Indiana ranks number one historically in the number of documented grain entrapment deaths, with one death in 2014 and four incidents requiring extrications. The high rate in the state is likely due to the aggressive nature of Purdue’s surveillance efforts rather than the actual numbers.
Fields and Cheng noted that many states have diminished funding to land-grant universities for studying farm safety, while Indiana has maintained a level of funding to Purdue for the service.
It is estimated there may have been 6,500 injuries treated in 2014 in the state. The authors say prior research by the National Safety Council indicated 2 percent of reported farm injuries result in permanent disability, resulting in approximately 131 such cases in 2014.
The authors indicate the figures are complied from news clipping services, web searches, voluntary reporting from Extension educators and personal interviews. The figures do not include fatalities resulting from accidents involving farm trucks, heart attacks during work and deaths caused by medical complications from workplace health hazards.
The lack of consistency in causes of fatalities makes targeting of prevention resources difficult, other than in the cases of tractor-related incidents where rollover protection devices could help, they said.
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