On the morning of 17 January 2017, I decided to agitate an underground slurry tank.
Once finished, I lifted the agitator out of the tank and pulled forward.
While doing this, I received a phone call. I was distracted and totally forgot to return to close the tank cover.
Later that evening, I returned to the shed to check the cattle.
I walked from the dwelling house, entered the shed and turned on the lights. I picked up a plastic bucket from the passage way to get feed from a grain silo bin, located just outside the shed. I walked out from the lit-up passage way, turning right to go to the silo bin.
There is no external lighting. The opening to the tank is on this walkway and I walked straight into the opened underground tank.
There was almost 7ft of slurry in the tank. I am 6ft tall, so for a period of time I was submerged in the slurry.
It was a non-slit, solid slab, so I had nothing to grab on to. I searched for a corner and found shuttering pins.
These allowed me to get my head above the slurry. Fortunately, the bucket that I was carrying had also fallen in. I managed to get this to the floor and use it to stand on, giving me a one foot base. My head was now just above the slurry.
My mobile phone is not a smart phone, but an old button phone.
Despite being submerged in slurry the phone still worked, but the screen was unclear.
I was able to phone my wife, a neighbour and the emergency services.
I was able to speak, but could not hear as my ears were full of slurry
Escape
Fortunately my wife responded and I got out using a ladder.
I was in there for 33 minutes.
It is my mission to highlight how important a phone that suits its environment really is and that it is much more important to be able to make that call, than using a phone for data entry on a farm.
My father died in January 1998 in a farm-related accident.
I am very conscious about safety ever since.
SHARING OPTIONS