'Take your time' says farm accident survivor

A MAN who survived a farm accident two years ago has a simple safety message for farmers in County Galway and elsewhere during the winter months.

“Take your time. The work will always get done,” said Nick Dunican, a tillage farmer who lives in Belgooly, near Kinsale in County Cork.

Cattle have been placed indoors on many farms in the West of Ireland, something that brings a different type of potential danger to the one faced by Nick in the summer of 2024 when he was cutting grain.

As well as the tillage farming, Nick has a business importing second hand machinery and combine harvesters from the UK.

He was demonstrating a New Holland TX32 combine harvester to two prospective buyers one morning in August of 2024, when he went to cut grain in a section of a field that has a steep hill. After climbing approximately 20metres, Nick stopped the combine harvester intending to reverse down the hill.

However, the brakes had no grip in reverse, causing the machine to roll down the hill, before it tumbled and ended up on its roof.

Horrific Experience

“It was a horrific experience,” said Nick, who managed to avoid being sucked out of the cab of the harvester while it was on its roof, pressing the stopper cable to shut down the machine.

“I went up the hill because I had gotten away with it before. This time I got caught and got lucky.

“The combine was wrecked. You’re just a 100kg person, you’re so weak and vulnerable with a machine that weighs 13 tonne or 14 tonne.

“Had I been thrown out of that machine, had it rolled a second time, had I not been able to hold on, I would be just another statistic.

“I look back on my accident, and I did see the next world. I thought about my wife and my two sons. It’s a risk that I took. It has an awful effect on your consciousness.

“I will never cut that part of the field again. I will farm it, but I will never use a combine on it and will never harvest it.”

Nick explained his experience in a video with the IFA to coincide with Farm Safety Week in July.

The video has amassed more than 49,000 views on YouTube.

“My sister started crying straight away when she saw it,” said Nick, who is from Kilbeggan in County Westmeath originally.

“An amount of people has come back to me to say that is a very strong video. It took a lot out of me to do that video. I got several taps on the shoulder at the Ploughing from people who said thanks for sharing the story. A lot of people have said a lot of nice things.”

Risk Assessments

Nick does a risk assessment before taking on jobs now and has a few safety tips that farmers may take note of during the winter period.

“There’s always a risk when animals are inside. They’re locked up against their will, farmers need to be careful with cows and calves and need to be very, very careful when doing the winter feeding,” offered Nick.

“It’s short days and nights now with winter feeding. A lot of part-time farmers are out after 6pm feeding cattle in the dark, working with 800kg silage bales.

“I sell a lot of cubicle bedders and diet feeders. Sticks and stones can get into bedders, and a bedder is like a loaded gun if they get into them. They could kill someone."

He advised farmers not to look into a diet feeder as there’s a clock on the front of it.

“Make sure PTOs are in good working order. The front loader, are the pipes corroded? Are the pipes on the shear grab okay?

“It’s just basic safety measures. Pins can get worn with metal fatigue and the grease gun is needed. Having kids around the yard in winter is dangerous.”

Taking time to get the work done remains Nick Dunican’s overriding message when it comes to farm safety, no matter the time of year or the task at hand.