Five years on from a quad bike accident that fractured Beca Glyn’s skull, wearing a safety helmet is programmed into her subconscious, and is as familiar to her as wearing a car seatbelt.
On that fateful day in March 2018, when she was thrown from a quad bike while rounding up sheep, the young sheep farmer became a health and safety statistic.
Although she continues to live with some of the consequences of that accident, Beca says she is lucky.
“I lost my sense of taste and smell, I suffer from migraines and need to take tablets to give me energy but I am very thankful that I didn’t hit a part of the brain that controls my spinal cord or memory.
“Taste and smell are nothing compared to the ability to walk or remember.’’
The accident happened when Beca was helping her father round the sheep on the family farm at Ysbyty Ifan.
She swerved sharply too quickly, tipped the quad bike which landed on top of her and, as she wasn’t wearing a helmet, she hit her head on the tarmac road.
Beca was taken by ambulance to hospital and only returned to farming after nine months of rest, physiotherapy and rehabilitation, missing an entire lambing season and putting extra work pressure on her parents, Glyn and Eleri.
Now aged 30, that accident has made her extra careful about farm safety, and also the wellbeing of everyone on the farm, including her father.
“He was with me when I had the accident and in shock, no-one wants to see one of their children unconscious and injured,’’ says Beca.
“We are now more conscious of working at height, handling cattle, all those jobs on the farm. I now won’t help with a job if I don’t think it is safe, therefore Dad has to listen to me, otherwise, he knows he won’t get any help!’’
Had she been wearing a safety helmet when her accident happened, Beca’s injuries would have likely been minor, she believes.
“We learn from our mistakes and I know that I would have probably just maybe hurt my neck and had some bruising.’’
Her ability to taste and smell did return last summer, but sadly it was temporary. “It has come back once, maybe it might again,’’ she ponders.
As a Wales Farm Safety Partnership Ambassador, Beca wants to instil the safety message across the agriculture industry.
“I wasn’t someone who was reckless on the farm or driving at full throttle before the accident so if it can happen to someone like me it can happen to anyone.’’
