Farm Accident/thai Worker Dead Today

[bina]

well, hubby and i were supposed to go to moshav achituv this morning to visit thai friends working there, but we left later then planned and as it happened. we arrived two hours after a young thai worker got killed in a tractor accident;

he was in the same 'camp' (living area) as ourclose friend although i cont think we really knew him personally...

he was driving a john deere tractor and some metal pole caught on the material that is strectched over the plants in the greenhouse (cuncumbers that climb up poles). the material is lower then the roof of the greenhouse itself. apparently it got caught/pulled and some metal part of the tractor snapped into the man's skull thru his eye. he apparently was working alone in the greenhouse near friend's little mini cabin, but never came to eat lunch. his boss couldnt reach him by phone so went to find him. and found him with his eye gouged out, and other gory details that i couldnt understand.

i was asked if iw anted to go see th body, but husband declined therefor so did i... police and paramedics had already been and gone and since it was shabbat (sabbath)the body was put in a room to wait for shabbat to finish (after sundown) so the body could be tranferred to- i guess -either forensics for final decree or to morgue to await flight home. it made mid day news blurb and that was it.

the 'camp' was very much more subdued than usual for a thai area-- usually saturday afternoons they work half day so there is a lot music/food and general visiting/sanook with guys going back and forth from each other's 'camps' (living quarters in packing houses, caravan areas, or groups of cubicles, set up by each boss for his own workers, although often clumped together since thais like to live in 'psuedo village set ups.)

today people were just walking around, and talking although no one seemed terribly upset. when i questioned hubby, he said: what do u want them to do? walk around and cry? people will sit with each other in the evening after work, maybe send some money home to his family to help out a bit with funeral expenses. that was it.

from what i know the guy wasnt married but im not sure... hopefully his family will get some work benefits money (his boss is a good guy as far as ive seen, but agriculture is not a very lucrative business these days) from workers insurance. however, im also not sure how long he's been in israel working. it may be that the manpower company still 'owns' him, in which case his family wont see the money as ti will go to cover company expenses.

i never got his name either, and the guys, in a very thai manner, kind of avoided or changed the subject no matter how i tried to ask pertinent questions. i can just imagine how the police interogation/interview went. (here, any accident is automatically assumed to be possibly 'nationalistic i.e terrorist oriented' until proven otherwise. a metal stake in the eye is obviously not a terrorist action. )

saddthu.

bina

israel

hopefully its no one's relative from here on the forum....

[Scott]

My sympathies to the family, friends and co-workers. Very sad to see a young life cut short. And with him probably a lot of hope dies as well.

[Mario2008]

Sad story. My sympathies to his loved ones.

[kurnell]

Does the government offer any sort of support for low income earners if their family members are killed? Any idea how much life insurance is?

[bonobo]

It is sobering to realize sometimes just how fragile life really is.  I saw a crushed motorcyclist on Wednesday morning on my way to work, and despite this being the fifth dead motorcyclist I have seen this year, this one really bothered me more than usual and has been on my mind continually.

My heart goes out to the families of both men.

[sbk]

I wonder how many overseas Thai workers die in accidents each year? The families of the legal ones are the lucky ones, they know what happened to their loved ones. But I imagine, for those working illegally, they just disappear and their families never know what happened.

Of course, the same applies to the many Burmese, Cambodian etc people working here in Thailand as well.

Thai people, IME, Bina very rarely react to sudden death, usually very fatalistic, ie "well, thats too bad but what happens is what happens", especially if it is not someone who is a close friend or family member.

[jackr]

today people were just walking around, and talking although no one seemed terribly upset. when i questioned hubby, he said: what do u want them to do? walk around and cry?

Thai's do seem a bit shut off in that sense unless something happened that will directly affect them. While there may be logic of not making a fuss, the cynic in me sees a general lack of emotion/affection or just not really caring. Perhaps it's that we are overly so...

[WaiWai]

today people were just walking around, and talking although no one seemed terribly upset. when i questioned hubby, he said: what do u want them to do? walk around and cry?

Thai's do seem a bit shut off in that sense unless something happened that will directly affect them. While there may be logic of not making a fuss, the cynic in me sees a general lack of emotion/affection or just not really caring. Perhaps it's that we are overly so...

I find this very interesting, too. It certainly demonstrates the power of inculturation, if reactions to death can be so very different.

Is there a grief suppressed, or processed differently, or minimized, or is it non existent?

Are there cultures which deal with death in a similar way?

Forgot to say: sorry, bina, as this has presumably affected you.

[bina]

Does the government offer any sort of support for low income earners if their family members are killed? Any idea how much life insurance is

first, there is the national work insurance which covers all legal workers regarless if from overseas... however, the amount of beurocracy makes it difficult to process thru especially if the worker is from thailand... i suspect that the boss will help in this case cause he's a good guy, ive met him several times and from what i know from his workers they like him.

second: now the reactions are setting in. anon woke this morning to tell me that : probably last nite xxx's mother didnt sleep, and now the family will be crying and waiting to prepare the body for cremation...

and then he told me: this is the guy that always came by to sombot's camp to say hello, the one that spoke issaan (most of our fiend's camp are korat and speak central thai) to you ..

the update: the guy was turning over the soil int he greenhouse, the tractor caught a bunch of nylon screen hanging on the side of the greenhouse. the screening material somehow started to wrap around him. the guy panicked and tried to reverse away from the material but that just pulled it tighter. the metal of the tractor then bent into his face.

i feel sorry for his boss and the other workers as they were the ones that had to get him out of the screening material and give first aid until paramedics arrived. since it was shabbat (sabbath) everything is much slower, since less rescue teams work. today the officials arrived in the morning from the moshav section of the ministery of labour, and the police, to do enquiries. he ws a legal worker and had a tractor's licsence. most work managers these days make sure to send their workers for tractor licsences.

just not really caring

im sure that it is not indifference. its just a different way to react. there is a huge difference between ashkenazi (western) israelis and the north african/middle eastern israelis in a big way. the second group are very very vocal and reactive when it comes to death (or anything else for that matter) and consider the european/westerners to be very cold, like the british (thats their example).

so the thai i think supress reactions and keep themselves to themselves. dont forget they dont have a wat here, no monks, no elders, no community other then themselves so they have to keep themselves to gether, in focus. they see that as part of life. they cant blame the boss in this case, it wasnt a case of gross negligence, just a stupid accident or failure of judgement with the worker (too close to the corner? tired?) .

they feel that there is nothing they can do to change the situation. the guy is dead. now they can only help his family and forget or move on. israelis on the other hand, have been reacting in the talkbacks in the news section with extreme reactions of shock and horror even to blaming the employers....

i think thai are just very inward people. they dont let it all hang out if its negative, as opposed to sanook and having a good time which they do with lots of noise. i dont take that is indifference. its just different.

bina

israel

[rideswings]

Any idea as to his identity other than the fact the he speaks Isan? My wifes male cousin whos family lives near Sakhon Nakhon works on a farm in Israel, so Im a little concerned (although Im sure there is more than one Isan Thai man working on a farm in Israel).

[Scott]

The loss of a loved one is handled differently by different cultures. Much of the ritual is meant to either assist people in showing excessive grief, or encouraging it. The very closest family is usually allowed a great deal of latitude in their grief.

Different people also respond and react completely differently. I am quite composed when I lose someone close (although I can't hold it together if it's a pet). But then one day, sometimes weeks or months later, out of the blue I am a complete blubbering idiot.

Thais seem to like to stay on the quiet and reserved side. They also seem to not want to discuss their loss as much. Funerals seem to be long, drawn out ordeals--the last one I was at I had a little trouble figuring out when the funeral was underway.

[Maizefarmer]

Sadly there is nothing unusual about these accidents - those who were TV members a few years back will recall that I came within a moment of a similar fate and have now to live with the consequences for the rest of my days. It happens so fast - and more often than not it's against a background of over-familiarity and [over]-confidence (i.e. you become so familiar with repetitive tasks you become blind to the dangers - they stare you in the face and you don't see it.)

Agricultural accidents kill Thai's daily, mostly rice harvesters and rice threashing equipment, but a failure to use ROPS on tractors also accounts for more than a few deaths each year. For the first time ever last year I saw Thai accident/death figures for combines (as in maize combine harvester - the machine type that chewed me up), and was shcoked to see that on a pro rata basis they are less than 5% lower than the acccident/death figures associated with rice harvesters/threashers.

In the UK/Europe/USA if a farm worker is injured or killed on a farm in an accident asscoiated with farm machinary, all sorts of enquiries and investigations take place - lots of paper work to do, and big fines/penalties follow if there is liability on the part of the farmer or farm co. Although the accident bina ref's happened in Isreal (and I don't know what prominence health & safety is giving on Isreali farms, H&S in Thailand, and H&S education amongst Thai farm labourers is weak to non-exsitant).

Farm machinary is dangerous - in Thailand mechanised famr machinary accounts for the highest proportion of deaths amongst labourers working with mechanised equipment - this figure is inclusive of labourers workers in factories, industrial plants and/or similar type manual labour enviroments.

The Thai Dept of Agrculture prints health & safety (H&S) info and runs some health & safety courses for farm workers - if you employ a Thai to work with any type of mechnised ag equipment, my advice is give them access to as much health & safety info as is avaliable. Faliure to do so could in theory, leave you exposed to all sorts of liability issues if they were to have an accident. If anyone is interested in such info drop me a private message and I'll copy to you what I have, and details where you can get additional info. Also, keep a signed record of sorts all the H&S bumpf you provide to your Thai workers, time (in working hours) for them to read/study it, an oppurtunity to ask any questions they may have, and keep a signed acknowledgement from them that not only are/were they provided relivant H&S info, but that they read it, understood it, and have had an oppurtunity to ask questions.

If its a 3rd party digging your swimming pool or whatever (i.e. you have contracted a company) and they have supplied their own tractor/backhoe and driver, liability, in short, is not yours - its between the operator and the company who they work for.

[bina]

actually, the gov safety and hygiene (OSH) have instituted a thai edu program mobile van. it started up back when i was a safety manager and i was offerred the job of becoming a agric. safety advisor. However, my being a woman, and dealing with israeli agric. guys, especially the ones on the moshavim, i felt that i would be spending more time argueing than educating so declined (also family issues at that time).... most of the info in thai is about poisons and spraying, since that is where most of the thai work hands on, and have no knowlege at all.

the tractor course they get is a good one (husband went thru it also, its in thai but the same course the israeli guys get as well).

however, most agric. stuff here doesnt work ISO. i could barely get our international factory to go ISO if it werent for european requests for ISO made materials.

they sent a guy out to see if it was negligence: i also used to do accident inquiries as my job; i suspect the answer will be a bit of both: the screen material shouldnt have been just hanging in a corner, the worker was tired (friday night partying, saturday work only half day ) and thinking of lunch, the john deere had a metal bar (didnt see the tractor, so dont know what tractor it was, but the thais say something about some metal bars-- maybe the frame of the cabin, and the cabin was an open cabin? ) that caught on the material;

the law says that there is no need for a safetly manager in any work force of less then 50 (kibbutz has one in place of me, i resigned since israelis dont like following safety instructions); in the end, no one will be to blame (for legal purposes), but even if there is an inquiry, there wont be follow up in the newspapers; these accidents happen all the time here ; a few months ago a kibbutz friend of mine's 22 year old brother dropped the shovel part of a tree digger on his foot (he pulled the wrong lever and was not on the machine for some stupid reason) and broke all the bones. he cancelled his one year trip to australia and has to go thru a year of physio.

my ex tried taking a rock out of a cultivator and almost lost his hand (many years ago) since he dint stop the blades from turning....

Any idea as to his identity other than the fact the he speaks Isan? My wifes male cousin whos family lives near Sakhon Nakhon works on a farm in Israel, so Im a little concerned (although Im sure there is more than one Isan Thai man working on a farm in Israel).

i didnt get his name and it wasnt printed int he newspaper; the consulate was notified as was his manpower company and the immediate family was notified already too. i also dont remember his nickname; pon maybe? but there are a million witht he same nicknames...

and yes; half of issaan lives in israel for at least five years ) this moshav was achituv, in the sharon area, near natanya if that gives u a clue. u can always ask him or his family for his address i can attempt to find it; barring bad thai pronounciations of hebrew names...

bina

israel