County hit by two serious tractor accidents on same day

The county of Dorset has been hit by two serious tractor accidents on the same day.

On Monday evening (6 September), West Dorset police appealed for witnesses after a fatal crash on a rural road.

Police were alerted at 9:06pm to the single-vehicle accident which took place at Hackney, near Corscombe.

The tractor driver, a local woman in her 60s, was pronounced dead at the scene by paramedics. 

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Sergeant Rhys Griffiths expressed his condolences to the woman’s family and added that a thorough investigation was under way to establish the circumstances of the collision.

Sergeant Griffiths said he was keen to hear from motorists who were driving in the area and captured any relevant dashcam footage of the yellow Renault tractor, fitted with a fore-end loader and rear-mounted hay bob.

Contact Dorset Police via email at scit@dorset.pnn.police.uk or by calling 101, quoting incident number 6755.

Driver airlifted

Earlier on the same day, a tractor driver had to be been pulled from his overturned tractor and airlifted to hospital following another serious accident.

Paramedics, police and four fire crews arrived at the scene near Drones Lane, Compton Abbas, where the driver had been hauling a slurry trailer across fields.

Although the man was freed quickly, concerns over his injuries prompted the decision to use the air ambulance, a Dorset Fire and Rescue Service spokesperson said.

Dorset Police added that the What3words smartphone app had been vital in pinpointing the site of the accident.

The app has allocated a three-word code to every 3m square of land and sea across the world.

Anyone with the app can then use the three-word code to guide others to the same 3m square, making it more precise than a postcode.

A police spokesperson said: “The What3words app played an important role in getting emergency services where they were needed as quickly as possible.”