WELLBEING CONVERSATIONS
Conversations save lives Harriet Bremner urges people to talk about known dangers that could prevent accidents or deaths onfarm.
T Harriet Bremner and Poppy.
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hey were stone cold dead when they were found. Gone. Others knew not to go there but maybe if that person had used some common sense they would still be alive”. This was what I heard someone say in relation to an accident that happened years ago. It quite simply made me feel deflated, that it was said with little care for the person who died and suggested that if they hadn’t been so stupid they would not be dead. I am absolutely 100% sure that if it was their precious family member who had passed - their opinion around the matter would be very different. My argument is that all that had to happen was for the people who knew about the danger to inform others of it. A simple conversation that would have saved a life and a family from a lifetime of grief. I am not going to go into details about what, where, why, who and so on because that doesn’t actually matter and it is not the point. The point is that conversations save lives. We cannot assume that someone will look at something and see the imminent danger right in front of them, therefore, we cannot assume anything. Assumption is something I have learnt, can get
you into trouble with many different things in life, yet we tend to assume many, many things. For instance; we assume that because someone is an ‘adult’ that they are able to drive a car. I have personally never asked anyone to prove to me that they have their licence before they jump behind the wheel, have you? It has just been that time of year again where many of you will have gone through a change of job yourself or a change in staff on the farm coupled with drying cows off, organising grazing and more. In the thick of it, it is very easy for us to drop into this assumption mode as we like to believe that the people who are standing in front of us are competent at what they do. We assume that because they have worked on farms before they are able to drive the tractor or move irrigation… but are they competent at it and do they understand your systems? It is during a time like this that people are tired, stressed from moving their lives and families, thrown into the unknown and wanting to make a good impression. This, mixed with many things needing to be done on the farm, can be a disaster waiting to happen because when our mind is not 100% focused on the job, we are more likely to have an accident. Dairy Exporter | www.nzfarmlife.co.nz | June 2021
