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Hayride Goes Awry

Posted: Thu Aug 04, 2011 8:11 pm
by Rudi
Posting here for the interim so most of our members might see it. It is a sad sad reminder of what can happen in a split second. I will move it to the Safety Forum in a couple of days.

Eddie aka Scotia sent me a heads up on this one and I saw it this morning on the news. Kinda upsetting cause kids were involved. Thankfully no one died. Goes to show that one really has to pay attention when towing a wagon etc., for a hay ride.

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More than 50 children attending a summer camp in Quebec suffered cuts, bruises and broken bones Wednesday afternoon after the trailer they were riding on overturned and threw them to the ground.

Fifty-three people were taken to different hospitals near Bromptonville, 150 kilometres east of Montreal.

Authorities said some of the injuries are serious but none are life-threatening. The serious injuries are believed to mostly consist of broken bones. However, later Wednesday doctors also revealed some of the victims suffered chest and abdominal injuries.

"We need to reassure people -- especially parents," Stephane Tremblay, director of professional services at the University of Sherbrooke Hospital Centre told The Canadian Press.

"People's lives are not in danger."

Jacinthe Ouellette, director of public relations at a hospital where some of the children were taken, said 10 injuries were considered serious, with one being "more complicated."

"There are lots of broken legs, broken arms," she told CTV News Channel Wednesday.

More than 50 people were on the trailer when the accident occurred, most of them between the ages of seven and 12.

Police say it appears the tractor was going down a slope too fast, causing the trailer to overturn.

Fortunately, police say passengers were ejected from the trailer, and it appears no one was crushed.

A total of 15 people were transported by ambulance to hospital. Many were taken by bus.

Tremblay said 16 victims were sent to Fleurimont hospital in Sherbrooke, while 37 others were taken to Hotel Dieu hospital.

The incident occurred during a Christian camp activity at a farm. Children from Quebec, Ontario and the United States attend the Evangelical Baptist Church camp in nearby Lennoxville.

CTV's Montreal Bureau Chief Genevieve Beauchemin said the tractor was not part of a commercial operation. The owner had offered to give the children a ride.

Police are investigating the incident.

Need to find the source so it can be credited.

Re: Hayride Goes Awry

Posted: Thu Aug 04, 2011 9:01 pm
by Cub-Bud
Glad no one was killed.

That is the wrong kind of trailer to use for a hayride. That fifth-wheel is all over the place, especially downhill.

Where is the hay :?:

Re: Hayride Goes Awry

Posted: Thu Aug 04, 2011 9:02 pm
by ricky racer
"More than 50 people were on the trailer when the accident occurred, most of them between the ages of seven and 12."
50 people!!! :roll:

Re: Hayride Goes Awry

Posted: Fri Aug 05, 2011 5:33 am
by randallc
In our day that would have been way too many. A few square bales of hay, and 12 to 15 kids a trailer. If more kids another trailer. We only had 4 wheel trailers. And the driver/farmer went very slow. Slow enough you could jump off, trot along and jump back on (not the safest thing to do, but we were teens). On dirt roads. Our biggest fear was getting hit by an auto. Course when a team of horses pulled the wagon, parents were concerned about a runaway.

Re: Hayride Goes Awry

Posted: Fri Aug 05, 2011 6:44 am
by CPIII
A few years ago something similar happened to my two girls while they were at a summer camp just north of Austin. It was a little different in that the pin that attched the trailer to the tractor had sheared (Years and years of use and no one ever checked the condition of the pin) and the trailer went down a hill and ended up in a clump of cedar trees. luckily no one was seriously hurt (I think the most serious injury was a poke to one of the girls eyes that left a slight scratch) but it could have been very serious! My daughters were really shook up after the incident.

CPIII

Re: Hayride Goes Awry

Posted: Fri Aug 05, 2011 11:00 am
by Boss Hog
Only an idiot would have 50 kids in that

Re: Hayride Goes Awry

Posted: Fri Aug 05, 2011 11:31 am
by ScottyD'sdad
Boss Hog wrote:Only an idiot would have 50 kids in that

Lots of them around, Boss! Ed

Re: Hayride Goes Awry

Posted: Fri Aug 05, 2011 11:38 am
by Larry in WNY
That tractor looks too small to be pulling a loaded wagon (people or hay) down a grassy slope. Probably lost traction and sped down the hill causing the accident. We've worked some steep hills and it doesn't take much moisture to start slipping.

Larry

Re: Hayride Goes Awry

Posted: Fri Aug 05, 2011 12:08 pm
by tccanoe
Looks like a jack-knife to me. Too much weight, too fast and trying to turn or slow/stop. Trailer over-ran the tractor. Somebody did not know what they were doing.

Re: Hayride Goes Awry - Update

Posted: Fri Aug 05, 2011 12:15 pm
by Rudi
SHERBROOKE, Que. -- Police have launched a criminal investigation into the trailer crash in Quebec's eastern townships Wednesday that sent 53 people to hospital, including dozens of children, police said.

The tractor and the trailer that overturned were towed and will be analyzed for mechanical problems, police said. The driver of the tractor, a man in his forties, is still in hospital and will be questioned by police. The exact cause of the crash is still unknown, police said.

Thirteen people, 10 of them children, remain in hospital. Five of them should be released by Thursday evening and three children who are in intensive care are expected to be transferred to the pediatric department. Fifty-nine people were treated for injuries after the trailer flipped over.

Ten children were seriously injured with broken bones, cuts and eye trauma. None of the injuries are life-threatening.

The children, aged 8 to 12, were on a Christian summer camp excursion about 90 minutes east of Montreal. More than 50 people were on the trailer when it overturned just after 1 p.m. as it was descending a hill.

"The driver might possibly have lost control of his vehicle, causing the trailer and the tractor to jackknife, which ejected the youths and everyone on the trailer," said police spokesman Rene Dubreuil.

When asked what might have caused the crash, Dubreuil said the driver "was possibly going too fast in a field."

The children are from Quebec, Ontario and the U.S., police said. They were taking part in the Hebron bible camp, run by a Baptist church in Sherbrooke.


I will let the spokesman's comment stand on their own....

Re: Hayride Goes Awry

Posted: Fri Aug 05, 2011 12:43 pm
by Matt Kirsch
There are a LOT of big accidents like this going on this summer. What's going on?

Maybe it's God's way of telling us that we can't make being stupid illegal?

Re: Hayride Goes Awry

Posted: Fri Aug 05, 2011 12:48 pm
by Jim Becker
Matt Kirsch wrote:Maybe it's God's way of telling us that we can't make being stupid illegal?

In this case, maybe it was. Reports say it is being looked into.

Re: Hayride Goes Awry

Posted: Fri Aug 05, 2011 1:01 pm
by FCUBMAN
You just can't fix stupid. Legal action after the fact doesn't undo the damage, but maybe it will make others think a bit. It does make it more difficult for the rest of us to do things like give hayrides or be in a parade, unfortunately. Now I'm reading that the government wants farmers to have CDL's to drive tractors on their own land. Events like this just reenforce their case.

Re: Hayride Goes Awry

Posted: Fri Aug 05, 2011 1:09 pm
by tst
Boss Hawg got it right i believe, 50 in the wagon was dumb, some one is an idiot
Tim

Re: Hayride Goes Awry

Posted: Fri Aug 05, 2011 1:54 pm
by Bob Perry
Looking at various pictures on the internet, searched in Google news, the John Deere went down a steep grassy slope, having a loader mounted on it, less weight on rear wheels, then add in other factors: kids moving around? going too fast? wet grass? quality of brakes? Looks like the trailer took off and spun the Deere around.

Somebody's in trouble...Should have been thinking about the implications of other people's kids, a reasonable person would know you just can't take these kind of chances!