By Marx Itamalo|

SEVERAL people have sustained serious injuries with some having their limbs (hands and arms) amputated due to injuries caused by motorised mahangu threshers.

The threshers are used to separate kernels from the rest of the head and it also involves removing the chaff which is carried out by winnowing to obtain a clean grain.

The threshers have replaced the traditional method of separating mahangu grains from the head, whereby the head was beaten with wooden sticks.

Omutumwa Online has gathered that in June, and at the beginning of this month, several people were admitted at local hospitals with varying degrees of injuries to their upper limbs especially arms as a result of injuries inflicted by threshers.

June, July and August are the traditional threshing months in northern Namibia and many farmers either use their own threshing machines or hire them from entrepreneurs to thresh their mahangu.

Now it appears using these machines come with its own consequences though.

This newspaper was informed by a medical source at Onandjokwe hospital that last month, a dozen people were treated for injuries sustained as a result of using threshing machines.

“Most of them came with severed hands, that have to be amputated,” said the source, who works in the hospital theatre as an assistant. He declined to be named as he is not authorised to speak to the media.

According to him, he could recall five cases of people, mostly young men who went through the knife with broken and fractured and protruding bones. Two of them had their arms amputated.

“The machines have totally chopped their hands and bones were crushed. The only option was to amputate,” he stated.

According to this source, all victims appeared to be in a sober state when brought to the hospital, therefore he ruled the possibility that they got injured due to intoxication when operating the thresher.

“It could be may be that they do not know how to operate the threshers properly,” he noted.

Meanwhile, this publication has also established that six men were also admitted and treated at the Oshakati state hospital as a result of injuries sustained during threshing with threshing machines.

According to a medical source there, some had their hands or a whole arm amputated as a result.

“I recall two young men from Omusati who came badly injured and their limbs were amputated. Two young men whose lives were somehow got ruined. One told us he was a bricklayer and that he might not work as a bricklayer again,” the source told this newspaper this week.

Henock Hilinganye, an entrepreneur who lends motorised mahangu threshers at Omafo in Ohangwena explained to Omutumwa Online that mahangu threshers are very dangerous when operated by someone who is not properly trained to operate them.

“What we have to know is that these machines deal with a liquid fueled engine with many parts running during the threshing process,” Hilinganye said.

“If one got unlucky and your limb mistakenly falls in, it will be badly damaged until the machine is switched off.”

He further noting that many injuries occur when the operator tries inserting mahangu heads which are stuck at the entrance of the thresher inside with their hands.

He said the machine should be switched off for this exercise and further calls on fellow thresher lenders to train operators on the machines when customers come collect them in order to avoid unnecessary injuries.

Many farmers have resorted to using mahangu threshers these days in order to save time, and and also to reduce post-harvest grain infection by pests as well as grain contamination by sand, dust and micro-organisms.

In the photo: A mahangu thresher, for illustrative purposes.