California Boy Survives Being Impaled by Manure Spreader
Tines of the manure spreader punctured the right side of his face and neck and the right side of his chest.
A 10-year-old boy survived after he was impaled on the tines of a manure spreader that a family member was driving at a Strathmore, Calif. farm.
Officials said the boy, whose name has not been made public, was riding on a tractor Monday with a relative when he slipped off. Tines of the manure spreader punctured the right side of his face and neck and the right side of his chest.
The manure spreader was not running when the boy was on the tractor, but when the driver stopped the tractor the spreader began running and entangled the boy when he fell, said Joe Garcia, division chief of the Tulare County Fire Department. A Tulare County fire truck from Strathmore and an ambulance arrived at the scene, and fire personnel cut the boy free of the manure spreader.
"This is not a typical accident," Garcia said. "Agricultural accidents happen to adults, but we haven't seen an accident like this with a child."
Within an hour of the accident, the boy was flown by helicopter to Community Regional Medical Center in Fresno.
Emergency room personnel called the Fresno Fire Department to assist with removing a 22-inch section of the spreader still attached to the tines puncturing the boy's body. Fire personnel used the Jaws of Life extrication device, an electric saw and then a hacksaw to cut away the pipe.
Doctors operated on the boy to remove a tine that remained lodged in his face.
At a news conference outside the hospital's emergency entrance, Fresno Fire Chief Randy Bruegman said the boy was in critical condition.
"He's a very, very fortunate young man. One or 2 inches to the side and he might not have survived."
E-mail Paula Lloyd at plloyd@fresnobee.com
(Distributed by Scripps Howard News Service, www.scrippsnews.com.)
