Suckler farmer Alan Gibbons has lived to tell the tale after a kick from a heifer left him fighting for his life last autumn.

A week after the Ploughing Championships, on Saturday 28 September 2024, Alan was moving cattle with his father, Frank, and brother, David, when he suffered a brain injury on their farm near Strokestown in Co Roscommon.

A heifer which had been bought at the mart the previous day got loose while being taken off the lorry and kicked Alan as he tried to bring her back.

The kick, which caused him to fall backwards and hit his head off the ground, left the 34-year-old in a coma for 19 nights.

“Where she kicked me, she kicked me above my knee – on my thigh,” Alan said. “She lifted me, I fell, and took all the impact on the back of my head. I fractured my skull in three places. That caused swelling on the brain and a bleed on the brain. Then it was off to Beaumont for me where I spent 19 nights in a coma.

“I was just running down one side of the wall; she was running down the other and I was trying to get ahead of her.

“She stayed running, but as soon as she was far enough ahead of me, she kicked back with her two legs and kicked me into the thigh,” he explained.

Milestone

At this time, Alan had hit a major milestone in his family life. Just six weeks previous to the accident, his wife, Shona, gave birth to their first child, Senan.

“I lost nearly a month you could say. After coming out of the coma, I don’t really remember much of that first week at all. But then things settled, thank God. I was in hospital for six weeks all together,” he said.

Alan reckons that youth and the speedy response of his family and medical professionals were his saving grace.

He was knocked out initially after hitting his head, but soon regained consciousness in the yard. When he started to bleed from the nose, Frank and David took immediate action and a paramedic was by his side within 20 minutes.

Recovery

Alan was flown to Galway and it was there they discovered the bleed and swelling on the brain. He was then transferred to Beaumount Hospital by ambulance.

Now, seven weeks on from coming out of hospital, Alan is making satisfactory progress, despite getting meningitis while in hospital.

“I feel good now, but if I do a bit too much, you’d feel it – in my legs especially.

“I have an appointment on 7 January with the surgeon who did the work. I presume there will be scans done then to see if everything is as it should be,” he said.

Alan stressed how important good facilities are when working with cattle, but also highlighted how lucky he was to not be on his own when the accident happened.

“When you look back on what happened that day, I suppose you could say gates weren’t fully secured right. We took for granted that everything was going to work out the way it should.

“That heifer was also just bought the day before, so the awareness of bought-in cattle is also so important. You know nothing about cattle you buy, only their colour.

“But I think the biggest highlight from this story is the fact that if my father and brother weren’t with me... I doubt you and I would be chatting,” he said.

Alan Gibbons with his wife Shona and daughter Senan. \ Philip Doyle