Farmworker dies as loader plunges into slurry pit

A farmworker has died after the loader he was driving plunged into a slurry lagoon.

The 50-year-old man was using a JCB loader bucket to scoop slurry from a lagoon on Thursday morning (4 September) at Westcombe Farm near Beaminster, Dorset.

The JCB appears to have broken through fencing and slid down the bank into the slurry where the worker became trapped in the sinking vehicle.

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His colleagues raised the alarm after they arrived at the scene to find the loader completely submerged.

A spokesman for Dorset Police said: “At 8.25am Dorset Police received reports of an industrial accident at Westcombe Farm in Hooke.

“A farming vehicle entered the slurry pit and the driver died in the incident.

“The death is not being treated as suspicious and the Health and Safety Executive has been informed.”

Dorset Fire and Rescue added that two technical rescue crews from Weymouth and appliances from Beaminster and Bridport attended.

It is understood two tractors were used to haul the loader from the lagoon in an operation which took about an hour.

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