BORDERER Samantha Kinghorn MBE has partnered with the Farm Safety Foundation (Yellow Wellies), to support this year’s Farm Safety Week and is urging everyone to be more farm safe aware.

Farming has the poorest safety record of any occupation in the UK and Ireland, with 42 people losing their lives on UK and Ireland farms over the past year.

And the recently crowned world T53 100m champion believes that, despite improvements in attitudes and behaviours in the farming industry, many of these deaths and injuries could be prevented.

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In 2010, Sammi was involved in a life-changing accident on her family farm causing an injury that left her paralysed from the waist down.

With her incredible spirit and determination, she is now the fastest-ever female British wheelchair racer representing Team GB, winning multiple gold medals and competing in two Paralympic Games.

She said: “When I was asked to take part in promoting farm safety week I agreed because there is probably no better charity for my own story.

“My message to all farmers would be to slow down, look at what needs done and don’t get into dangerous situations. Farmers tend to work alone and help is now always at there. I couldn’t count the number of times I’ve seen my dad having near misses.

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“One of the biggest things I’ve shown my family and is that life can literally change in a split second and people need to stop thinking 'it'll be fine' because the one day it's not fine is the one day you wish you'd done something about it”

“It’s about simple things like wearing protective eye equipment which doesn’t take long to put on.

“Although the message is mainly aimed at farm workers it’s also for visitors as most people find themselves on a farm at sometime in their lives, especially in the Borders.”

Stephanie Berkeley, Farm Safety Foundation manager added: “Farming is an industry where people do not retire at 65 so, while we are seeing an encouraging improvement in the attitudes and behaviours in the next generation of farmers, we are also seeing a disproportionately higher number of older farmers losing their lives in farm incidents 33% of fatal injuries were in people over the age of 65.

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“The fact is, every single one of us living and working in the industry needs to step up and take responsibility and challenge and change their attitudes so we can make our farms safer places to work and to live.”

Sue Thompson, Head of Agriculture, Health & Safety Executive, said: “Agriculture is a vital part of the UK economy and it is not acceptable that it continues to fall short when it comes to managing risk in the workplace.

“It is all the more tragic that we still see children killed by farming activities. As an industry we must not tolerate this any longer. We need everyone to play their part to improve the culture and change the poor behaviours we see far too frequently.”

For more information on Farm Safety Week visit www.yellowwellies.org or follow @yellowwelliesUK on Instagram/Twitter/Facebook using the hashtag #FarmSafetyWeek