By Curt Peterson
A convoy of haying equipment and workers started out from Braintree on Monday, May 26, to harvest 47 acres across from Harpoon Brewery for landowner John McGrail of Shepherds Brook Farms.
Their journey was cut short when a 20-foot tall, 27-ton self-propelled John Deere forage harvesting machine, avoiding collision with an oncoming car, hit a retaining wall, careened through a guardrail on the left, snapped a utility pole, and crashed to the rocky bottom of Lull Brook Gorge, 100 feet below Route 5.
The machine is leased by Michael Ferris, who was contracted to hay the field. Driving behind his 19-year-old son Joseph, who was driving the harvester, Ferris watched the terrifying crash.
Jay Boeri, who has owned and operated a small hydroelectric facility in the gorge, told the Mountain Times the machine is 11 feet wide, making avoiding a head-on collision difficult.
“His father told me young Ferris was wearing his seat belt, but when the machine bounced over a [water diversion pipeline] on its way down, he bailed out to avoid the ultimate crash,” said Boeri.
Joseph was rescued by Hartland, Windsor and Hartford fire department, who pulled him up under the generator pipe using a specially designed wire basket. He was rushed to Dartmouth Hitchcock with a broken collar bone and other possibly serious injuries.
A witness said Joseph Ferris was conscious and speaking to his rescuers but seemed to be in a lot of pain.
From above, one can see a dent and gash in the pipeline, caused when the machine bounced over it.
Route 5, a main artery into Hartland from Windsor and I-91, was closed to traffic from the intersection to Martinsville Road from 3 p.m. on Monday until almost 11 p.m.
Boeri said about 600 customers were without power while the debris was cleared and repairs made to the 12-18,000 volt wires taken down when the harvester hit the pole.
Store manager Nate Eastwood worried that losing power for an extended time would cause Three Corners Market to lose produce, frozen products or meat. He kept the store open for customers into the evening.
Boeri estimates accident’s cost might be as much as $300,000, not counting the machine itself, which is “smashed to pieces” and is held back 5 feet from the brook by trees and brush it carried down during its fall.
“There are six stakeholders involved in deciding what to do next,” Boeri said. “Me, as the owner of the hydro facility, the state police, Ferris, his insurance company, Sabil and Son Towing, and John McGrail. The Sabil firm, whose crew removed pollutant fluids from the machine, is unofficially in charge of retrieval of the wreckage.”
Deliberation included cutting the water diversion pipe, bringing in a heavy-duty crane from Massachusetts, hiring a giant helicopter, or doing nothing and letting the brook take the harvester downstream and out of the gorge. The only feasible plan is to dismantle and “bring it up in pieces,” Boeri said.
“The utility wires prevent use of a crane, the diversion pipe blocks any attempt to drag the wreck up the bank, and the machine is too heavy for the helicopter. Letting it wash downstream endangers my hydro facility,” he said. “That would cost a million to replace.”
Joe Donovan, vice president of MG2 Group, John McGrail’s enterprise that oversees Shepherds Brook Farms, said the hay that the crew was hired to harvest was destined for one of their three farms in Hartland, Randolph and Brookfield.
