A NEAR death experience under a quad-bike for Tilba dairy farmer Robyn Lucas has made her appreciate her family and the farm even more.
But while recent farm statistics show that quad-bikes are now the most dangerous piece of equipment, she said it is the rider that is to blame for accidents and that care must be taken at all times.
The 49-year-old farmer was checking the far end of her farm on Tuesday afternoon last week when she forgot about overgrown cow trail alongside a drainage ditch.
The bike tipped over in the rut, doing a three-quarter roll and landing on top of her in the muddy ditch.
“It was very scary and I thought I was going to die under the bike, but then I realised they went ready for me upstairs,” she said.
“I didn’t panic and thought through what I needed to do to survive.”
Her first instinct was to get her mobile phone out of her pocket but it had already drowned in the ditch water.
After lying there for what she thinks is about 30 minutes and sensing she and the bike were sinking down into the mud, she realised she had to struggle to wiggle out from underneath, seriously injuring her shoulder in the process.
She only walked a short distance when her son Charles, who works with her on their dairy off Sherringham Lane, found her and took her to the safety of the farm buildings about two kilometres away.
“I hadn’t walked 100 yards and there was Charles,” she said.
Charles, 23, said when the cows started coming back in the wrong order for milking at about 2.30pm, he sensed something was wrong and 15 minutes later he decided to go looking for his mum.
Ambulance paramedics from Narooma arrived and stablised her before the Snowy Hydro SouthCare helicopter flew her to hospital in Canberra.
She was in hospital for three days being treated for chest and shoulder injuries, but she is now back on farm but under strict “rest and relaxation” orders.
Robyn was full of praise for the Narooma paramedics who did an “extraordinary” and “fantastic” job looking after her and comforting her family.
She also said her family including partner Tony and sons Charles and Sam and their partners Micaela and Jess and been so supportive and caring, as well as friend Jeannine who rushed Sam back out from town.
It was also heart-warming to receive flowers from the agriculture class at Narooma High School, with whom she and Charles have supported by supplying calves over the years.
“I also want to thank everyone for the many phone calls, messages of support and well wishes that started right after the accident,” she said.
She is already keen to come back to work and even as the paramedics were carrying her out to the chopper, she was making a list of what needed to be done in her absence from the milking to looking after her chickens.
Quad-bikes leading cause of death
Last week’s accident comes just as new statistics on farm safety have been released showing just how dangerous quad bikes are.
Graham Fuller writes that there’s a bitter-sweet take on the latest set of farm accident statistics.
During 2011 a total of 59 on-farm injury deaths were reported compared to average totals around 146/year in the early 1990s – a 60 per cent reduction.
However, quad-bikes have overtaken tractors as the leading cause of incidents for the first time, according to research conducted by the Australian Centre for Agricultural Health and Safety (ACAHS).
Centre director Tony Lower says the year just passed has been the lowest on record for farm injury deaths.
“This reduction over the past 20 years is fantastic news, however, by our estimates, many more deaths can be prevented by adopting solutions which we know from the evidence work,” he said.
ACAHS says that quad-bikes (18) were the leading cause of all deaths with tractors responsible for 10 deaths, translating to 31 per cent and 17 per cent of incidents respectively.
Tragically, seven of the fatal cases involved children under 15 with quad-bikes (two) and drowning (two) singled out by the research.
“This is the first time that tractors have not been the leading cause of death and really reflects ongoing design improvements centered on roll-over protection,” Tony Lower says.
“Significantly, while the number of deaths with every other cause is going down, quad-bikes are going off-the-scale in the opposite direction,” he added.
ACAHS says the 18 quad-bike deaths only represent on-farm incidents, noting there were a further five off-farm quad-bike deaths which took the national toll to 23 during 2011.
“Historically, roll-overs are responsible for half of all quad-bike deaths and the evidence clearly points to crush protection devices on quad-bikes as having a net benefit in reducing deaths and injury - yet the manufacturers continue to defy logic and put riders at increased risk by not supporting these steps,” Tony Lower said.
Footnote: ACAHS says agriculture has the unenviable record of ranking only second behind road transport as Australia’s most dangerous industry.
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