Streamstown man recalls near-death tractor accident

The last Thursday in October marked a special anniversary for Dan Lynam of Streamstown: the 20th anniversary of the day he didn't die.

At 9am on October 27 1997, the cord from Dan's anorak got entangled in the PTO (power take off) shaft of his tractor.

Within seconds, it spun Dan off his feet, whipped him up and over to the other side, leaving him with excruciating injuries from which he took two years to recover.

But miraculously, he did not die.

The man with him at the time – Declan Weston - reacted swiftly and managed to reach in and shut down the power – just in time.

“My head was going between the drawbar of the slurry tanker and the PTO shaft,” says Dan, who had been holding his nine-year old son Davidl's hand as the accident began.

“My head hit the lift arm and all my clothes were taken off me,” Dan recalls.

Even his underwear went; all that remained was the elastic off his underpants.

The two admit that the incident must also have been traumatic for David, who one minute was holding his father's hand, and an instant later watching him pulled violently across the PTO shaft.

Word was sent to the house to tell Carmel to call an ambulance, and Declan got Dan into a car and up to the Lynam home.

“The ambulance came and brought me to hospital, and I was put in intensive care in Tullamore,” says Dan.

Remarkably, he never lost consciousness, although once in the hospital he got sick and his heart actually stopped briefly.

For Carmel, learning of the accident was like history repeating itself. Just four years earlier in April 1993, her brother, Pat King of Rosemount had died in a tractor accident.

That day marked the start of a long slog back to good health – and on Dan's wife Carmel, then working as a primary school teacher, fell the responsibility trying to keep the farm running. It meant going out each evening after school, with the older children, and following through on the directions given by Dan.

“That was the hardest part for me: sitting here and knowing Carmel and the kids were out trying to clean out cattle at 11pm at night,” Dan says.

“I was never really into farming,” Carmel admits, explaining that this was largely new territory for her – but as a self-employed farmer, for Dan there was no sick pay; and an insurance policy they had only paid compensation in the case of loss of limb, something that, thankfully, Dan had been spared.

“I had multiple breaks in my left knee – that took three operations; I had friction burns; I was left with a deformed arm – it's still deformed today; I had head injuries from my head hitting the lift arm,” says Dan.

He was fortunate that with him when the freak accident happened was Declan Weston from Co Laois, who had previously worked on the Lynam farm, and who had returned just to give Dan a hand with slurry spreading. Dan and Carmel two still credit Declan's speedy reaction with saving Dan from death.

“Only for Declan's quick thinking, Dan would not be here to tell the tale,” says Carmel.

Thankfully, Dan was able gradually to return to farming, and twenty years on, his sons Donal and David have both followed him into farming, Donal at the home farm and David, who is also a part-time builder, on a farm at Tyrrellspass. Dan and Carmel also are parents to Niamh, who works in IT; Aoife, who works in Day's Bazaar, and Patricia, a landscape architect.

Dan, who farmed all his life, in July became national treasurer of the ICSA, the oldest farm association in the country.

“Farm safety is foremost in ICSA's minds, and particularly in my mind, and as national treasurer, I will be promoting it strongly,” says Dan.