The Willsmore family has a few stories to tell about farm safety, (from left) Andrew, Alan and Dallas Willsmore.
Cropping farmer Andrew Willsmore is the first to admit he made a number of errors on a fateful night four years ago when two people ended up in hospital.
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The third generation farmer runs a 6000 hectare cropping operation at Underbool in the Mallee.
He was working alone at night in 2019 on a self-propelled sprayer with a 36-metre boom about 30km from home base, when a simple accident turned into a nightmare.
The accident set in train a series of events that involved a severe injury to himself and a hospital stay for his mother.
Andrew agreed to talk to Country News as part of Farm Safety Week, in the hope of reminding farmers “what not to do!” as he put it.
Andrew, now 56, was spraying a paddock on a warm summer night in January, about 4am, taking advantage of the night time temperatures when absorption is at its peak.
“We’re told to do the spraying in the evening or the night because of the effect on the chemicals,” he said.
“Of course we’ve been working during the day and we try to get a few hours sleep before going out.
“Fatigue can be a problem in the busy part of the season.”
Andrew was making a turn on the sprayer when the boom arm clipped a barbed wire fence and the sprayer became entangled.
The tension caused by the entanglement shut down the hydraulics automatically and when Andrew climbed down to check on a solution, his hand was ripped by a piece of the barbed wire.
Without having a close look at his injured left hand he took off his shirt and wrapped it around to stop the bleeding.
He text his mother about a running tap he recalled that needed attention, thinking she would get the text in the morning and follow it up.
She replied instantly, so he asked if she was already awake, would she come out to pick him up, as he had had an accident.
After getting directions, she and her husband set off, and they had several phone conversations.
After a while, the phone calls stopped and Andrew couldn’t raise them on the phone.
He walked to a nearby rise and, to his consternation, saw a vehicle’s tail lights in a vertical position about 3km away.
When he got to the scene he found a wrecked, overturned four-wheel drive, his mother covered in blood and his father, nowhere to be found.
The vehicle had failed to take a bend and had flipped several times before coming to rest in the scrub.
Apparently, his dad had headed off into the darkness to find Andrew. His mother, who was able to walk, and Andrew, found him about 2km away and they summoned further help.
The wrecked ‘rescue’ vehicle.
They all ended up in the Ouyen hospital, and Andrew was taken to Mildura, where microsurgery was required to stitch his hand back together.
His mum spent a few days in hospital, and thankfully, the head injury, though bleeding profusely, did not result in any permanent damage.
Andrew is grateful things didn’t turn out worse, but there are a few things he has thought about since that fateful night.
He believes fatigue might have contributed to his lapse in judgement in striking the fence.
On reflection, he should have walked away and returned in daylight with some assistance, but was endeavouring to sort out the problem on his own.
In his first call to his parents, he should have re-assured them he was okay and told them not to rush.
When he made the second call for help to his wife, he emphasised they were okay.
Andrew Willsmore’s injured hand.
Andrew is not a man prone to panic. In 2012, he and another man rescued two people from a crashed, burning plane, near Bendigo, for which he received a national bravery medal.
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