In this instalment of Agriland Media’s series, Farm Safe, Farm Well, we meet a farmer who suffered life-changing injuries 40 years ago after she became entangled in a power take-off (PTO).

Almost 40 years since she survived being entangled in a PTO shaft on her farm, Betty Taylor still feels lucky to be alive today.

On October 8, 1985, Betty and her husband, Joe, from Ballylooby, Knocklong, Co. Limerick, had brought a load of oats home for their beef cattle.

While Betty was crushing some oats, the loose jumper she was wearing got caught in the drive shaft which did not have a cover.

The young mother was then violently swung around the drive shaft repeatedly until the it eventually broke.

“Only for the PTO eventually broke, I feel I would have been killed,” she said.

The Farm Safe Farm Well series, produced by Agriland Media in conjunction with AXA Insurance, is funded by the Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine (DAFM).