FACTS
- Farm injuries are most common among preschoolers and younger teens. Most farm-related deaths occur to children younger than 4 years old.
- Younger children are more likely to be injured than older children because they lack coordination and do not understand the risks of their behaviors.
- Common causes of injury to children younger than 6 years include falls, drowning, large animals, machinery and tractors.
- The most serious falls occur from great heights and onto hard surfaces. Falls are less severe if the ground around the play area is covered in 12 inches of woodchips or mulch.
- Farm deaths are not occupational (i.e., not directly caused by farm production work). These fatalities were due to the farm “lifestyle” (i.e., leisure-related drownings, deaths of children who were playing in barns, etc.) or related to agricultural services, forestry, fishing, hunting, or trapping.
- Other hazards and causes of injury to children on farms include falls from height, silos, chemicals, contact with electricity, noise and firearms.
STATS
- Each year, almost 14,000 children are injured on a farm in the U.S. The majority of them were not working when the injury occurred.
- Children and adolescents account for about 20 percent of all farm fatalities, comprising a higher proportion of the total number of nonfatal farm injuries.
- Approximately 50 percent of these fatalities were classified as occupational fatalities, mainly due to farm production work.
- More than 100,000 children are injured on U.S. farms every year, and more than 22,000 of these children are treated at emergency departments for their injuries.
- Statically a child dies in an agricultural related incident every 3 days and 33 children are seriously injured every day.
- Tractors cause 40 percent of accidental farm deaths of children under 15; and more than half of young children injured on the farm (ages 10 and under) were not engaged in work at the time of the injury – they were merely bystanders or playing in the hazardous agricultural work site.