Farmer Says How He Escaped Death In Horror Accident At Work

A farmer has told of how he escaped with his life after being pulled into a potato harvester.

Speaking to the Wetherby News, Darren Taylor, 44, said his arm and leg were dragged into the machine with his other limbs outside, leaving him “literally doing the splits”.

He fought against the powerful machine for 30 minutes, and while he lost his left leg, the elbow in his left arm and part of his right leg, he managed to avoid being pulled into the machine.

Mr Taylor was working on the machine in Tadscaster during October 2013 when he slipped between the machine’s rollers. He explained how he thought that an oil pipe had burst, but in fact the liquid he saw was his own blood.

When the alarm was raised, it took around two hours to free Mr Taylor, and he was then flown to Leeds General Hospital.

He was in an induced coma for eight days and needed a further three months of hospital treatment. He will have another operation this month and hopes to be able to walk using prosthetics by as early as April.

Mr Taylor said he hopes he will be able to return to work on his farm and to drive a tractor in the future.

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