Dave Allen

2008 was not a good year for harvesting. The wet weather had restricted work but finally the climate had changed and now that it was drier and brighter, self employed farmer, Dave Allen, was able to resume harvesting the wheat down in Cornwall.

"The machinery got hold of my boot so I tried to pull my foot out of it. I managed to release my leg but realised that something was seriously wrong. I was wearing a boiler suit and couldn’t see the bottom of my leg – but I knew from the weight that my foot was gone. I also knew that it was only a matter of moments before my boiler suit was going to get caught and then that would be it. I knew I had to get out of the grain tank or I wasn’t going to survive,"

 

Dave had been contracted to harvest a field for a local farmer. Unfortunately a little of the grain had got stuck in the tank of the combine harvester. Dave, who was working alone, got into the tank to release it by kicking it to make it move. However, Dave’s decision to rectify the situation as quickly as possible would lead to horrific consequences.

"Rather than using the ladder to enter the tank, which would then stop all the mechanisms, I decided to go in over the top – which meant the mechanisms were still fully operational."

"The machinery got hold of my boot so I tried to pull my foot out of it. I managed to release my leg but realised that something was seriously wrong. I was wearing a boiler suit and couldn’t see the bottom of my leg – but I knew from the weight that my foot was gone. I also knew that it was only a matter of moments before my boiler suit was going to get caught and then that would be it. I knew I had to get out of the grain tank or I wasn’t going to survive," he remembers.

"Human error caused my accident. All the safety devices were working correctly but a split second of trying to cut a corner – to save time - resulted in me losing my foot and part of my leg," Dave admits.

Fully conscious, Dave managed to haul himself out of the tank onto the cab roof of the combine harvester, climbed down into the cab where his phone was and rang the contractor he was working for to get him an ambulance.

"It took about 30 minutes for the ambulance to arrive because no one knew the exact location of the field. It seemed like a lifetime."

During that 30 minutes Dave focussed on the potential financial problems his accident could lead to. Self employed, he worried about not having an income in the immediate future, whether a rash decision had threatened his livelihood. "It was a kind of defence mechanism."

He also called his fiancée, Cath, (now his wife) to tell her he’d had an accident – but didn’t explain the severity. "I was devastated when I found out," she says. "So much goes through your mind, but there is also a numbness. I remember wondering, how will we survive, get through this? It was Dave’s positive attitude that actually helped me and the whole family in those first few days and weeks."

Dave was in hospital for a month and underwent six operations. He also developed an infection – probably due to dirt getting into his foot. Following his stay in hospital, Dave went to stay with family. "I needed somewhere where I could get around in a wheelchair. They were wonderful – they, along with Cathy, did everything for me. I stayed for about four weeks, then, once I was able to move around on crutches, I returned home."

Dave then had the painful process of learning to walk again, months of physiotherapy and adapting to a prosthesis. It was sheer determination that got Dave through his ordeal. "At first I had flashbacks, which made me shudder. I knew how close it had all been. The one thing that haunts me is seeing my boiler suit hanging down and knowing that if it had got caught in the auger then that would’ve been the end," he admits.

Whilst the emotional aspect has been arduous, the financial aspect – the one that he’d focussed on during that long 30 minutes wait for the ambulance – never materialised.

"I have been so lucky. I’ve had a good support system around me and the contractor I was working for continued paying me so there was no hardship financially. Not everyone is that blessed. It was five months before I was able to return to work and life could have been much worse than it turned out to be."

Dave comes from farming stock. He grew up on the family farm, first owned by his grandfather and then passed onto his father. He never wanted to do anything else other than be a farmer himself. Following the sale of the family farm Dave decided to go self employed and has enjoyed a successful farming career for over 30 years.

"I’d never broken a bone in my body before that day," he says, "Everybody in farming knows somebody who has been injured or killed in an accident. My advice to others is quite simple: do not do what I did. Just really think and realise that these safety devices are there for a reason and do not over-ride them. One day it could be you. Don’t think it only happens to others. I’m proof that isn’t the case."

Dave is a keen advocate of the Make the Promise. He knows only too well how a split second decision can change a life. His Make the Promise knot is a constant reminder as it hangs from the mirror in his truck.

Find out more about keeping safe at work.