'It is a miracle I am here': Cork farmer shares his close call with combine harvester for Farm Safety Week

Nick Dunican, who survived after the combine harvester he was operating overturned with him inside, in front of the machine he was driving at the time. Picture: Noel Sweeney

A Cork farmer whose combine harvester turned over with him inside believes it is a miracle that he escaped with no injuries.

As part of Farm Safety Week, Nick Dunican, from Belgooly, who also runs Cork Combines, has spoken out about the horror accident which occurred in Oysterhaven in August 2024.

He features in a video by the Irish Farmers’ Association that is supporting the safety campaign,

Westmeath native Nick told the Irish Examiner that the accident occurred just months after the death by suicide of his brother Paddy at his workplace in Kilbeggan Racecourse. He said: “We, as a family, had a tough year in 2024. I am here to tell the tale. It is just coming up to two years since that accident happened to me.”

Nick still remembers the terror of those moments after the combine turned over, resting on its cab.

“I remember it stopped. My fear was that I was paralysed. There was a little bit of grain in the tank, the combine was upside down, glass was broken everywhere, the windscreen was broken, and the doors were broken.

“It was roasting hot, there was hydraulic and engine oil in it, and the reel was still going.

“I had this machine of 15-tonne weight on top of me, and all that was between me and the next world was a cab that could take that weight.

“I was thrown into the ceiling of the cab and the header, the whole front of the combine is hanging down, and I pull the cord, and it all stops. The side windows were broken, and all I had to do was to run out onto the ground and run away, and that is what I did.

I rang my neighbour. He came up, and I actually hugged him because I needed to feel someone.

The memory of his brother’s death came quickly to mind.

“I stood at a grave only a few months before that to say goodbye to my brother, and here I am facing the end. It is just where that takes you and the mark that leaves on you.”

Nick got back on a combine the day after the accident. He had spent the past 25 years worrying about combines being brought into his yard and being offloaded from trucks.

“Loading and unloading combines is a dangerous business. I have always been worried, conscious, and careful about that aspect of my business. When it’s on the ground here in the yard, it is fine.”

He believes that he was repaid with his life for his weekly attendance at Mass.

“I think I was well paid for every minute I spent in that church. Something got me there that morning.

“As that combine tumbled over and all that steel and glass was breaking and cracking and bending and turning and crinkling, all that noise that happens in the spur of a second, when that was happening, it is a miracle I am here. It probably lasted about 10 seconds, 15 seconds.”