Farm accidents are on the rise

Farm accident s have risen by 13% in the l ast 5 years and by 31% in the l ast ten years. This is the stark f inding of a national sur vey of farm accident s conducted by the Teagasc National Farm Sur vey ( NFS). The sur vey found that in the f i ve year period 2012-2017 that 11% of farms had an accident and in total 2,814 accident s occurred.

The sur vey indicates that 42% of accident s involved li vestock with farm vehicles or machiner y involved in a fur ther 25%. Trips or fall s resulted in 13% of farm accident followed by chainsaws ( 7%) and farm buildings (6%).

The propor tion of accident s involving farm vehicles or machiner y has more than doubled from 2011 to 2017, while li vestock related accident s increased by 26%.

Almost all farm accident victims (97%) required medical treatment with 73% attending hospital, a fur ther 19% attended a doctor and 4% received f ir st aid. Tragically 1% of such accident s repor ted resulted in a fatalit y.