Falling hay bales kill Madras-area farmer

A Madras-area farmer was killed Sunday afternoon when several hay bales fell onto him as he was apparently moving them, Jefferson County Sheriff Jim Adkins said.

Harvey Ludwig Stickler, 76, apparently was moving some 80- to 90-pound bales of alfalfa hay when a large number fell, pinning him against his tractor and most likely suffocating him, Adkins said.

The sheriff said Stickler’s wife told them he had been missing for about an hour and she had gone to look for him.

Adkins said she called authorities to the scene south of Madras, at 3520 S. Adams Drive,around 5:30 pm. Sunday and he was pronounced dead at the scene. There were no witnesses to the incident, he added.

It was Central Oregon’s second hay-related farming fatality in about seven months. Early last June, a 77-year-old Prineville man, Gordon Evan Stroebel, was killed when three bales of hay fell from the truck he was loading, Crook County sheriff’s deputies said at the time.