Farmer died of traumatic brain injury after tractor crash - inquiry

A farmer died of a traumatic brain injury after the tractor he was driving crashed on his farm in rural Galloway, an inquiry has concluded.

Brian McColm, 68, had a long history of seizures prior to the accident on Awhirk Farm at Ardwell near Stranraer in January 2024.

A fatal accident inquiry (FAI) found it was impossible to identify the cause of the crash, but the most likely reasons were a steering system failure or that he had lost control due to a seizure.

It said there were no reasonable precautions which would have avoided McColm's death four days after the accident in the Galloway Community Hospital (GCH) in Stranraer.

An inquiry at Stranraer Sheriff Court heard the accident had occurred at some point before 13:00 on 5 January 2024.

It was told McColm had a history of epileptic seizures which went back as far as 1972, with the most recent one about a year before the fatal crash.

On the day of the accident, William Barry - who sometimes helped on the farm - had spotted a red tractor sitting down a lane running parallel to a silage pit.

As he headed toward it, he noticed another blue tractor down a "steep drop" before McColm appeared with a large gash and blood running down his face.

Barry offered to take him to hospital but he "became stroppy" and was determined to get one tractor out of the ditch by using the other.

He left him briefly but then returned to the scene to find McColm lying on the ground having a seizure.

An ambulance took him to the GCH and attempts were made to transfer him to the Queen Elizabeth University Hospital but his condition rapidly deteriorated and he died in the Stranraer hospital on 9 January.

In his findings, Sheriff Garry Sutherland said it was clear McColm had suffered seizures over a "number of years".

"It also seems to be clear that, latterly, presumably of necessity, he required to work on in running his farm notwithstanding those and cope as best he could," he added.

He said it appeared McColm's blue tractor had hit a slurry tank and that was when the fatal injury had happened.

He added that it was impossible to tell if its front steering system had been damaged before or as a result of the crash.

The sheriff also found that even without any of the delays there were in getting treatment, nothing could have been "done or done more quickly" that would have saved his life.

He concluded no reasonable precaution could have avoided the death but that there was a defect in the working system, with no way for McColm to alert anyone if he suffered a seizure or had an accident.