2019 Pennsylvania Farm Fatal Injury Summary

This report summarizes Pennsylvania's 2019 farm fatality data. In 2019, there were 27 farm and agricultural fatalities in Pennsylvania.

Table 1 provides summary statistics by demographics of the 2019 fatality cases. Almost 19% of the fatalities were to youth younger than 18 years and 44% of the fatalities were to 65 and older. All victims were male (100%) and 30% of the victims were Anabaptist. Further analysis of the cases showed that all the victims under 18 years old were Anabaptists.

Farm and Agricultural Injury Code (FAIC)

The Farm and Agricultural Injury Classification (FAIC) Code is a standard classification scheme used to separate out incidents not directly related to the work of production agriculture (ASAE S575.2 NOV 2019). FAIC codes allow identification of farm production work cases as well as unique situational exposures in production agriculture, such as non-workers in work environments. Table 2 provides summary statistics for FAIC classifications of 2019 fatalities. Thirteen fatality cases (48.1%) were classified as FAIC-1 Farm Production Work. For seven (26%) cases, the FAIC-10: Undeterminable category was used. The FAIC-10 category is used when news reports and death certificates supplied enough information to know that the case occurred within the agricultural industry but did not have sufficient detail to assign a more specific FAIC code.

Fatalities by Injury Source

Fatality reports since 2000 have been used by the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) Occupational Injury and Illness Classification System (OIICS) to characterize primary and secondary sources of injury. The Source of injury or illness identifies the object, bodily motion, or exposure which directly produced or inflicted the previously identified injury or illness. For example, if the worker was operating a farm tractor when it rolls over on the victim, the source would be the farm tractor. Table 3 provides the frequencies and percentages of primary injury sources.

Agricultural and Garden Machinery (n=3, 11.1%)

Construction, Logging, and Mining Machinery (n=3, 11.1%)

Building Materials (n=1, 3.7%)

Animals (n=2, 7.4%)

Buildings—office, plant, residential (n=2, 7.4%)

Floors, walkways, ground surfaces (n=1, 3.7%)

Geographical structures (n=2, 7.4%)

Water vehicles (n=1, 3.7%)

Highway Vehicles, Motorized (n=2, 7.4%)

Animal- and Human—Powered Vehicles (n=1, 3.7%)

Off-road and Industrial Vehicles—Powered (n=8, 29.6%)

Plant and Industrial Vehicles – nonpowered (n=1, 3.7%)

Summary

In 2019, a total of 27 farm and agricultural-related fatalities were recorded in Pennsylvania. Farm tractor overturns are a major source of fatalities in Pennsylvania. Roll-over protection structures (ROPs) are 99.9% effective at preventing deaths due to tractor roll-overs when operators appropriately use a functional seatbelt. Retrofit ROPs options are available for older farm tractors that pre-date ROPs as standard OEM equipment. More information can be found about retrofit options at the National ROPS website.

Youth under 18 years of age represented 18% of the cases. Seniors age 65 and older represented 44% of the cases, a higher percentage than the previous years. Together, these age groups represented more than 60% of the 2019 fatalities. Almost half of the 2019 farm and agricultural-related fatalities were directly considered agricultural work-related, while 26% of the cases involved non-workers exposed to hazards in the farm work environment or farm hazards on roadways.