In summer of 2010, a high school aged employee was going to off-load hay into the third story of a barn at the central New York farm where he was employed. Built into the side of a hill, the employee could easily drive the tractor, normally an International 504, directly into the third story. However, on this day, the 504 was not working properly, and the employee opted to use a different tractor instead. This tractor, an International 826, was much heavier, and the barn floor was unable to support its weight. Immediately upon entering the barn, the tractor crashed through three stories and landed vertically on the bottom level. The rollbar, installed just six months prior, hit the side of the first floor’s stone wall and propelled the tractor forward about a foot and a half creating a small space between the tractor and the stone wall. Though the employee was not wearing a seatbelt at the time and landed within that space between the tractor and wall, he was largely unscathed, except for a few scrapes and the loss of a single boot. After climbing free, he walked about a quarter mile to find the farm owner, Bill Olin, before visiting the hospital as a precaution. As Bill has told us, “the ROPS clearly spared him from being either crushed against the stone wall or having the tractor completely overturn and land on him.”
