GROUP AIMS TO REDUCE ACCIDENTS ON FARMS

Rural Indiana Safer Kids emphasizes education to promote safety around machinery, animals and chemicals.

The good news is that fewer deaths are occurring on Indiana farms. The bad news is that six to eight children die each year in Indiana in farm-related accidents, according to Greg Schnepf, who coordinates a state program called Rural Indiana Safer Kids. RISK's mission is to educate people about farm safety, with the emphasis on children, he said.

"There really shouldn't be anybody (killed), because a lot of times when you use the word `accident,' it really isn't," said Schnepf, who lived on a farm for 18 years."Most of these are `accidents' (happen when) someone is put in a situation they shouldn't be in _ maybe being asked to drive a tractor when you are 7 or 8 years old," he explained.

"It's very rare that I ever see a fatality on a farm that could not have been prevented."

Injuries in his family

Schnepf managed to grow up on a farm without being involved in an accident. But his cousin was electrocuted and his father lost a finger.

Schnepf believes that farm safety is better passed on through education rather than by enacting new laws. Parents should begin this education early, he said. They should walk around the farm with their children, even toddlers, and point out the dangers.

Older children should observe their parents and see how to do things.

"I think kids can be given just real simple little tasks, maybe watering the animals or maybe helping with some real basic feeding of the animals. But they need to stay away from big equipment and moving parts," he said.

Schnepf stops short of setting a minimum age for kids to work on the farm, saying it depends on the kid and the level of maturity.

Particular age groups have greater risks. Schnepf says the peak danger ages are 4 and 14. Kids at age 4 frequently sit on their parents' laps while on moving equipment and fall and are run over, he explained. One-half of all deaths on farms are to children under 5, he added.

At age 14, many kids are getting involved in day-to-day farming activities, Schnepf said, including driving tractors.

Tractors are the No. 1 cause of farm accidents, Schnepf said. They are also responsible for 53 percent of all fatalities. Restrictions on some kids

Kids who work on their family's farm are not subject to restrictions, he said. "But if you go to another farm and get hired by somebody, then restrictions enter in."

Federal regulations prohibit children younger than 16 from performing tasks for hire that are classified as extremely dangerous, Schnepf said. Those tasks includes operating or helping to operate such machinery as a corn picker, grain combine, auger conveyer, forklift or chain saw; working in an area occupied by a bull, stud horse or sow with suckling pigs; and applying many toxic agricultural chemicals.

These rules don't apply to most rural kids, however, because they work on the family farm.

Farms are particularly dangerous because they are both living areas and work areas. And unlike other work areas, like factories, kids are around. "If you go on a farm, you see children that are either working everywhere or they're just around everything that's taking place.

"I think that's what makes farming dangerous. It's that you can't get away from the danger. Everything's potentially dangerous on a farm. Whether you're talking about the animals, or whether you talk about the machinery or chemicals," Schnepf said.

Safer equipment is helping to reduce farm accidents, Schnepf said. For example, new tractors have rollover bars "so that when a tractor would roll over and the person is in a seat belt in the tractor like they should be, they won't get crushed by that tractor or mangled up."

New machinery also comes equipped with safety shields, so that clothing and hands don't come into contact with moving or sharp parts.

In addition, Schnepf said old, broken-down equipment should be taken away.

Schnepf said he doesn't believe that farm children are injured because their parents neglect them. Rather, many get hurt because their parents want them close by while they work.

"I don't think parents are negligent _ I don't think it's a willful act. I think they just feel so strongly that they want their children involved in the day-to-day operation of the farm that they just aren't quite as cautious as what they might be."