Press Releases
Accident victims will share stories of life after tragedy
Farm Safety Symposium opens 2016 Dixie Fire School in Elizabethtown
For Immediate Release
Thursday, March 10, 2016
For more information contact:
Angela Blank
(502) 573-0450
FRANKFORT, Ky. – Three Kentucky farmers who survived major accidents will address the 23rd annual Louis Crosier Farm Safety Symposium on Friday at 7 p.m. EST at the Elizabethtown Community and Technical College. Dale Dobson, administrator of the Kentucky Department of Agriculture’s Farm and Home Safety Program, will lead the Farm Safety Symposium and serves as president of the Dixie Fire School.
“These courageous individuals are willing to share their experiences so no one else suffers what they have suffered,” Agriculture Commissioner Ryan Quarles said. “The best way to deal with a farming accident is to prevent it from happening in the first place. That’s the purpose of KDA’s Farm and Home Safety Program – to educate people to practice safety at all times, on and off the farm.”
Gary Rock of LaRue County, Jack Trumbo of Shelby County, and Anna Ellis of Eddyville will tell how they were injured, how they endured the long and often painful road to recovery – and how their accidents could have been prevented.
The Farm Safety Symposium kicks off the 2016 Dixie Fire School, a three-day event that provides continuing education for first responders and youth on a wide variety of subjects, including rescue from grain storage facilities and large-animal emergencies. Some courses offer college credit hours.
The KDA’s Farm and Home Safety Program travels all over Kentucky to deliver farm, ATV, and lawn mower safety demonstrations. The program operates a one-of-a-kind rollover tractor simulator that demonstrates how a rollover protective structure (ROPS) and seat belt can save a tractor operator from injury or death in the event of a rollover. The program uses a miniature grain bin and gravity wagon to show the risk of becoming trapped in grain, and a power-take-off (PTO) apparatus that demonstrates the dangers of getting caught in a moving PTO, which is a rapidly rotating drive shaft used to power farm implements.
