Amish Male Run Over By Wagon Weighing Thousands of Pounds

The Witmer, Pennsylvania Fire Protective Association reported last week about a male person being run over by an “Amish-style wooden hay wagon”.

Witmer is an area near the heart of Lancaster County, PA, a stone’s throw from better-known locales like Bird-in-Hand and Intercourse.

It is an area heavily-inhabited by Amish residents, and in all likelihood this accident involved an Amish person.

Some outlets are (potentially erroneously) reporting this to be a “man”. But the word used in the fire association’s Facebook post on the incident is “male”, which could include a male child.

It may indeed be a man, but that can’t be determined from what I read in the shared post. The fire association writes:

Today, shortly after 4pm, Witmer Volunteers were alerted for a person struck in the 2000 block of Horseshoe Road. The initial caller reported a male was ran over by an older amish-style wooden hay wagon with steel wheels.

This wagon was located in the middle of a field, far from the main road and is estimated to have weighed anywhere from 3,000 pounds unloaded to 14,000 pounds fully loaded.

The initial caller was not with the patient, as they had to run over 1400 feet away to get to a phone to call 911. (To put this into perspective, thats about 4 and a half football fields).

So there are two eye-catching things – one in particular: the weight of the wagon was potentially immense. The 3,000-pound “unloaded” figure is heavy enough.

But based on the two photos released by the fire association, this wagon was not unloaded. On the contrary, this wagon looks much closer to fully-loaded to me:

So based on the range of figures provided, could that be 10,000 pounds of weight? More?

The other thing is the distance the person had to run to get to a phone – about 4.5 football fields, as the fire association helpfully notes.

That also suggests this was an Amish person without a smartphone (because if you own a smartphone, who goes anywhere without it nowadays).

Perhaps a farmer out working in the fields a good distance from any homes. It could also be that this was the farmer’s son or relative that was run over.

The fire association also reports that:

Engine 62-1 made the response on dispatch followed by Squad 62-1. Police, Fire, and Ems arrived simultaneously to find the patient, not trapped, and lying down by the wagon in the middle of the field. Patient care was given, and the individual was transported to the closest hospital.

Hopefully this person will have a good outcome and full recovery. It won’t be made public by the fire association though: “Age, address, patient status, and other details will not be given out.”

Interestingly, they also note that:

As one of 4 fire departments in East Lampeter Township, we cover a unique area that has both rural and suburban landscapes. Farm related incidents are not the most common calls we run, and as a matter of fact, most that do happen are not reported.

So we happen to be learning about this one, while there are many incidents that the public doesn’t find out about – I would guess because they are of lesser severity, at least some of them.

One last note. Stories like these remind us (especially “city folk” types, like myself), that although farming is often romanticized from a distance, it can be a dangerous life at times. Hopefully this person makes a full recovery, and this becomes a story of warning that he tells his grandchildren.

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