Farmer trapped under 1,000lb bale of hay saved thanks to app

A dad-of-two who stumbled upon a farmer trapped under half a tonne of hay saved his life by guiding medics to the remote location using an app on his phone.

Michael Moss, 39, was eating lunch in his garden when he heard distant screams for help coming from the fields behind his home in Worksop, Nottinghamshire.

He ran in the general direction of the anguished cries and found an idle tractor and a farmer nearby trapped underneath a 1,000lb industrial-sized bale of hay.

The farmer, known only as Stephen, was in excruciating pain and was screaming out: “Help me.”

Michael was unable to budge the bale himself, so he dialled 999, but he couldn’t guide the ambulance to the exact location as it was so remote.

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Thinking on his feet, Michael decided to use the what3words app, which provides an accurate location for emergency services, using three randomised words as a code.

It works by dividing the globe into a grid of 3m x 3m squares, each of which is given a unique combination of three words. The app's creators say the technology is now used by 85% UK’s emergency services.

By telling call handlers the words "dads", "scorched" and "hairstyle" medics were able to pinpoint where he was to within a three-metre square radius.

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Michael said it was about 1.25pm on June 23 when he heard a noise about half a kilometre from his home. He said: "Where we live is very rural, when you hear something unusual you twitch your head.

“I heard it three times and thought that’s definitely not a good noise. I had to investigate what the noise was. I ran through the woodland in my flip-flops and still holding my sandwich and could hear ‘Help me’ as I got closer.”

He says he eventually found the farmer pinned down by a huge bale of hay, with his lower body looking like a “squashed frog”. Michael looked at his tractor from behind and saw something had “fallen from the forks that he’s been working on”.

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The Good Samaritan said that a previous boss of his worked in emergency services and advised him to download what3words for occasions like this.

Thanks to the app, paramedics were able to reach the scene within 15 minutes of being called. They gave Stephen pain relief and a tranquiliser so they could transport him to the nearest hospital an hour away.

Michael said he was also able to help Stephen phone his farm hands, who also arrived at the scene to try and shift the heavy bales.

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He said there was another hay bale above the farmer that was starting to slip, getting dangerously close to falling on his head.

“You could hear the relief when we got the hay bale off and he tried to move about. At this point we became best mates,” Michael added.

Stephen was left with severe trauma to the pelvis and femur, but Michael believes it could have been much worse if he hadn’t got there when he did.

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“Those three minutes I had with what3words made all the difference. It can save someone's life,” said Michael.

He asked how else he would describe the location, which is among a series of fields, to call handlers who have never been to the area.

“The phone signal is an area of contention. It's not great there. What3words gives you something you can do offline, using three words to save your life."