Pet dog ‘drove’ tractor that killed farmer

A FARMER was crushed to death by his tractor when his pet dog pushed the driver lever in the cab, a sheriff concluded.

Harry Emslie died after the bucket loader of his tractor pinned him against the wall of a barn at his farm in Mintlaw, Aberdeenshire, in 2008.

A fatal accident inquiry held at Banff Sheriff Court yesterday determined that the accident happened when he went out to work on his land near his Brae of Coynach home on 8 June.

The 67-year-old farmer had been picking up animal feed with his loader and got out of the tractor to pick the last of it up by hand when the dog triggered the lever. His body was discovered by his daughter, Jacqueline, and her partner the following morning.

The couple had travelled to the Aberdeenshire farm for a pre-arranged business meeting and went outside to look for Mr Emslie when there was no sign of him at the house. After finding Mr Emslie with fatal chest and abdominal injuries, they discovered his pet collie sitting in the cab of the red Manitou tractor.

Grampian Police sergeant Colin Houston told the inquiry how he found Mr Emslie pinned against the wall by the tractor. The vehicle’s ignition was still on and the tractor was left in third gear with the handbrake off. The drive lever was in forward position and the tractor had run out of diesel.

The inquiry was told a neighbour had heard the noise of machinery coming from the farm the night before but no-one had witnessed the accident.

Former health and safety inspector Harris Cooper said Mr Emslie’s working methods had been “extremely unsafe” for the task he was carrying out. He said the tractor should have been parked parallel to the barn with the handbrake on and the gear in neutral. He added that it would also have been safer to turn the engine off and the dog should never have been left in the cab unsupervised.

Fiscal depute Alasdair Fay described the tragedy as an “extraordinary” accident and said it was a “distressing experience for all friends, family and acquaintances of the deceased”.

Sheriff William Summers yesterday said the case had been a complicated one: “The cause of Mr Emslie’s death was fairly clear, but the cause of the accident was not. The police investigation had ruled out third-party involvement. Suicide seems very unlikely because of the speed at which the vehicle moved off and the deceased’s frame of mind.

“The significant issue was the question of how the vehicle came to move forward. By far the most likely scenario is that the drive lever was knocked by the dog left in the cab.”

The sheriff said Mr Emslie would have had little if any time to react to the tractor which sped towards him. He said: “The dog in the cab hit the drive lever on the steering column of the vehicle. That engaged the vehicle’s drive mechanism.

“The vehicle moved forward so suddenly and at such a speed that Mr Emslie had no time to move out of the way of the bucket. The bucket pinned Mr Emslie against the barn wall by the abdomen.

“That caused the catastrophic injuries described in the post-mortem report. In consequence of those injuries, Mr Emslie lapsed into unconsciousness within a matter of seconds and died shortly thereafter. There was nothing to suggest that Mr Emslie had any suicidal intention.”