24 April 2018
If you spot an air ambulance landing in a remote agricultural area, it’s fair to assume that a farmer has probably had a catastrophic accident.
It’s ten years since Powys farmer Roger James took a short cut up a steep incline, wanting to save a few minutes rather than driving his quad bike the longer, safer way. On that sunny Sunday morning, he just wanted to check how the grass was growing and whether it was time to move his cows from one field to another.
Roger, now 58, was driving in the same manner he had driven almost daily for many years without mishap at Pistyll Gwyn Farm, Llanyre. But as he freely admits, that fateful day he took a short cut which changed his life irrevocably. Now, after a courageous and long fight to continue to earn his livelihood from farming, and despite numerous efforts to scale down by reducing both acreage and stock numbers, he’s finally giving in to retire. Because that day, his life changed forever when the quad slipped off a grassy ledge in a sloping field, landing on top of him.
“I’m in pain every day of my life. Although it’s mainly manageable and I try not to give in to it, it’s completely debilitating and exhausting, which has inevitably had a huge effect on me and impacted on my family too.
“I’m obviously hugely grateful that thanks to a skilled medical team, I can still get around and do a certain amount of the lighter farm work, but I have to spend at least ten hours of every day lying down or asleep to give me the strength and stamina to carry on the next day.”
Roger has been in a share-farming arrangement with a local landowner at Pistyll Gwyn since the late 80s. In those early days it was a holding of 460 acres where the couple kept 1,250 breeding ewes and 50 suckler cows.
But in the ten years since the accident Roger, his wife Joanne and their two children, who were then in their early teens, have had to come to terms with the fact that life could never be the same, and they have had to significantly reduce both the acreage and livestock numbers.
Fortunately, that fateful day, Roger had a mobile phone on him and just before his body went into complete shock, he had managed to call both 999 and Joanne.
The next few hours are clearly imprinted in his brain forever. He relives Joanne arriving on the scene first, quickly followed by locally-based paramedics who told him they were sending for an air ambulance.
“I hadn’t realised how serious it was until I saw the air ambulance land close-by.”
Roger was flown to Hereford County Hospital, but the team there quickly moved him to a Coventry hospital which had a unit specialising in the type of bone-crushing injuries he had sustained.
Although the skilful medics there managed to pin together his shattered pelvis, enabling him to walk and drive again, despite the best efforts of numerous physiotherapists and rehabilitation experts, nobody has been able to remove the pain which is now an ever-present reminder of what happened.
“You just get on with things,” says Joanne, adding that those early weeks of not knowing if or when Roger would even walk again, were the most harrowing.
“I had a huge amount of help from friends and family, including my son, now in his mid 20s and farming nearby, and our daughter, who recently graduated with a first-class honours degree from Harper Adams University.
“I couldn’t have managed without them but the first few months were very hard both physically and emotionally, especially since we had weekly six hour round trips to visit Roger in Coventry,” says Joanne.
Since the first eighteen months of his initial recuperation period, Roger has continued to make slow but steady progress. He generally walks unaided but can only move at one speed and it takes huge effort to walk straight, without veering to one side. His recovery and non-complaining acceptance of pain is probably down in no small part to his indefatigable spirit, which matches Joanne’s.
“You just get on with things and do the best you can,” says Roger with a smile, but ten years down the line, he feels he can no longer face the daily demands of farming. Fortunately, he and Joanne have been steadily building up two successful caravan sites in the locality and he hopes that managing these will be less physically exhausting but provide the family with a replacement income.
But before Roger retires, he wants to offer farmers everywhere some advice.
“A quad bike can be a farmer’s best friend, but it can be his enemy too!
“Every year, thousands of farmers have accidents on quad bikes, usually because they’re under pressure, rushing and take unnecessary risks.
“Many accidents go unreported because farmers either walk away in one piece or it’s an injury that they know they will recover from, but as I know first hand, you’re not always that lucky.
“Look after your life, safeguard your livelihood and drive your quad safely.”
The Wales Farm Safety Partnership (WFSP), a collaboration of all the key agricultural organisations in Wales, is working with Farming Connect to arrange a series of regional half day workshops ‘Saving lives and livelihoods’ starting this May. Chair of the WFSP, Brian Rees urges farmers everywhere to get up to speed with best practice on all elements of farm safety.
“Every life lost and every injury is one too many, but farmers can reduce the risks if they take the right precautions and put the right systems in place.
“Undergoing ATV or quad bike training is essential, as is keeping all vehicles in good working order and always wearing a helmet. “
For dates and locations and to book a place at a ‘Saving Lives and Livelihoods’ event, call the Farming Connect Service Centre or click here to download a farm safety information booklet. NB Eligible farmers can apply for subsided ATV (All-terrain vehicle) training through Farming Connect’s skills and mentoring programme.
For more detailed advice on farm health and safety, visit www.hse.gov.uk/agriculture