Church of Choppers Blog

On October 7, 1980, Bruce started bailing early in the day. By 10:00 a.m. it was too dry to make a good bale, but kept going. Although it was his 19th wedding anniversary, he couldn't take the day off. Cattle were getting into the crop and he wanted to finish the baling. When the machine's pick-up plugged, he grabbed the straw to unplug the machine. His hand was pulled in between two rollers and held tight until it burned off

"It was bad fall weather for harvesting. I had combined for about two nights and days by myself. I was tired. You know, I could watch the combine plug and I wouldn't even stop until it was plugged. I finished at midnight and went out after that to bale. Then I started baling again about five o'clock in the morning. I wasn't looking for anything so I guess I was just overtired, thats all. If I could go back and do it over again, I suppose I would shut the baler off, open the gate on the back, and dig the straw out from behind by hand. You could pull it out easy by hand with the baler open"