I feed about 125 of these a year, and never considered this possibility.
27 year old wife and mother killed by a round bale
So you're hanging at GlockTalk now???
No; my wife referred that to me.
125 pounds doesn't seem like a lot unless it comes at you in a hurry. I've almost gotten upside down with FEL tractors a couple of times.
I think they said the bales can weight like 1200 lbs, Guv.
I know of 2 other fatal events with a teen killed and later a young child in our extended church community where a round bale rolled off a trailer while unloading or came loose when on a tractor 'spear' (can't recall exact details)
It seems square bales might help to some degree, but heart breaking to think that it seems preventable and yet so final after a small shift of the bale.
That's enough to make you cry.
Stuff happens and it can happen in an instant.
We had a middle aged neighbor with big family go through a ditch with tractor and home made boom on the front of a front end loader with it up in the air. The boom was only supported by chains so up in the air it came over center and pile drove the guy into the seat of the tractor.
He lived out a long life after as a paraplegic.
Be careful with front end loaders with stuff up in the air.
In October I drove from south Ga to Atlanta the morning after hurricane Michael had passed over I-75. I saw several round bales had damaged the fence alongside the interstate and fields with many bales rolled into the adjacent woods. Even if you're not handling them, sometimes they'll come for you!
About 10 years ago, I took my tractor down behind the dam to scoop out some dirt. It's a pretty severe angle. I got a big load, lifted it and the back end started coming off the ground. I quickly lowered and dumped it. As Sonny Corleone said in The Godfather movie "Shtoopid, just Shtoopid. The ROPS were not in place and I wasn't wearing the seat belt. Had I not lowered it quickly, I would have been wadded up below the whole works and my Wife would have collected on some life insurance.