Opinion: The loss of a child prompts thoughts on farm safety
© Joe Stanley Last week fell to me the unhappy duty of burying my own child. At 36, it’s not an experience I imagined I would have to bear, alongside my wife.
Little baby George was born very early and unexpectedly last month, but defied all the odds to bless us with half an hour in which we could hold him and tell him how much he was loved before he passed away peacefully in our arms.
Despite living such a short life, he has since touched many others, and brought only good into the world. In that, George will surpass any one of us who has lived longer, which is, I suppose, as fine an epitaph as could be earned.
But the anguish of losing a child is a uniquely searing experience. Looking at his face – so similar to his beloved big brother’s – and knowing we were soon to lose him, I couldn’t help but feel then and now the colossal injustice of a good life, a precious life, left unlived.
About the author
Stolen from George was the opportunity to be a little boy, to play and feel the sun on his face, to make friends, fall in love, grow old and make his mark on the world. Whatever injustice we feel for our own loss, his is much the greater. And yet, as his daddy – and despite intellectually knowing there was nothing I could do – I feel that I somehow failed to protect him; that somehow I could have saved him.
A few days after we lost George, I saw through numb eyes a Health and Safety Executive notification that a child had been killed on-farm – the ninth in the past five years. In each of those cases, I can only imagine the devastation for the parents of losing a child into whom had been poured not just minutes, but years of love. And my heart goes out to them for their loss.
See also: Farm deaths double in 12 months, new HSE figures reveal
As an industry, please let us take this issue more seriously. We have an appalling safety record in general, and are the only industry where children are still dying in our workplaces every year.
There are many reasons given for this, but let us all remember the law: any access to the farm workplace for children under 16 must be supervised by an adult not engaged in work. Children under the age of 13 must not drive or ride in the cab of any agricultural vehicle. It is illegal and unsafe.
None of us ever think tragedy will befall us or our nearest and dearest, but the wheel of fate always stops somewhere. If you can help it, don’t let it be on you and yours. You don’t want this pain.
As farmers, most of us treat “the farm” as an entity in its own right – one that almost resents time spent away from it by the farmer.
Well, the farm will still be there tomorrow. So spend more time with your loved ones, with your family. Don’t lose sight of what’s truly important in life.
When my own end comes, I’m certain I would trade the memories of every day of work between this day and that, for those of the few brief minutes I spent with my darling little George.