Mother Nature dealt local onion producers a wet and rainy hand during the past few weeks creating a delay in the local harvest. (The Enterprise/Pat Caldwell)
ONTARIO – State inspectors continue to investigate the cause of a farm accident last week that left a prominent Malheur County farmer dead.
Theodore Trevor Frahm, 42, died after being pulled into an onion harvester at King Avenue north of Nyssa Tuesday, Oct. 8.
Oregon OSHA is handling the investigation.
The Sheriff’s Department received a call at 10:35 p.m. that night. Frahm died at the scene. Officials said Frahm was working with another man on the onion fields of Frahm Fresh Produce when equipment was started by the operator who did not know Frahm was close by.
Frahm was a manager at the family farm in Ontario, which included a packing shed. The farming operation and the family’s A&W Restaurant franchise in Nyssa were recognized earlier this year as business of the year by the Nyssa Chamber of Commerce and Agriculture.
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The family has farmed in the area since the 1920s.
Frahm is survived by his wife Krista Hytrek Frahm and their daughter and three sons, as well as his parents Rod and Launa and his siblings.
A GoFundMe set up in Krista’s name to raise funds for the family was created over the weekend.
“Trevor was always hardworking, funny and kind. He was a great man,” one comment read.
Frahm’s death is the second farm-related death in Malheur County in less than a month.
A 32-year-old farmworker died in Brogan Sept. 12 after an accident with a machine rolling up drip tape in an onion field.
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