A man’s body was found in a field near Chippenham surrounded by cows earlier this week, the Health and Safety Executive (HSE) has confirmed.
Emergency services attended the suspected cattle-trampling incident in Marshfield on Tuesday (10 August), but the casualty suffered fatal injuries and was pronounced dead at the scene.
HSE’s acting head of agriculture Adrian Hodkinson said: “While we must respect the ongoing investigations following these tragic incidents, most injuries or deaths that we’ve historically seen on farms have been both predictable and preventable.
“Despite the efforts of the Farm Safety Partnership in particular, an industry-wide change in attitude is needed for farmers to take action to protect themselves and others to the well-known risks they face.
“At this time of year, we have additional factors such as the school holidays and higher numbers of members of the public enjoying the summer weather and walking along public footpaths through fields with cattle.
“But we ask that farmers, farm workers and farming contractors take the right steps to stop these incidents. At this time of year, it’s important to manage risk from livestock and, with harvest well underway, to work safely with farm machinery.”
