The reality of responding to a farm accident is that, even with first aid training behind you, you may find yourself frozen in a moment of fight or flight.
It is one thing to sit through a course; quite another to be faced with a serious incident in real time. How many of us, if we are brutally honest, would feel completely confident we would know exactly what to do?
Farm Safety Week is an opportunity to revisit the practical steps that help prevent accidents in the first place. Yet the stark truth remains – around 8,000 people in agriculture suffer a serious injury each year.
When the worst does happen, one of the most valuable tools you have may already be in your pocket.
A fully charged mobile phone can be a lifeline – essential for contacting emergency services, sharing your exact location and, increasingly, offering guidance and reassurance in those first critical minutes when every second matters.
FarmersAid
To help people act quickly and confidently following a serious on-farm incident, RABI recently launched FarmersAid, a free, easy-to-use app designed to support anyone responding to a serious injury on the farm. Developed with experts in remote and rural emergency medicine, Professor Stuart Maitland-Knibb and Professor Cathy Jackson, the handy app is not a substitute for calling 999. It is designed for the reality of farming environments, where emergency services may be some distance away and family members, colleagues or neighbours are often the first to respond.
FarmersAid provides clear, step-by-step guidance and includes guidance for 10 serious on-farm accident scenarios including severe bleeding, crush injuries and livestock-related incidents. Once downloaded, the app works offline, making it suitable for areas with limited mobile coverage.
Get Prepped
Taking a few minutes to organise key information before an emergency can make it easier to communicate clearly when time matters.
- Location and access: Save key what3words references so emergency services can find you quickly and suggest suitable landing spots for an air ambulance.
- Signal blackspots and defibrillators: Identify areas with poor mobile signal and save the location of your nearest defibrillator.
Prepare Your Phone
If you have an iPhone…
- Medical ID & Contacts: In the Health app, set up your Medical ID so responders can view key details without a passcode. Add emergency contacts so they receive a text with your location after an Emergency SOS call.
- Emergency SOS: Your phone can call 999 for you, so check which shortcut is enabled, such as pressing the side or power button five times rapidly.
- Advanced Features: If you have an iPhone 14 or newer, turn on Crash Detection and Emergency SOS via Satellite.
If you have an Android phone…
- Emergency Setup: Go to Settings > Safety & Emergency to add your medical details and emergency contacts. Then, go to Settings > Security > Screen Lock Settings to add a lock screen message with your name and a next of kin number so it is visible without a passcode.
- SOS Shortcut: For most Androids, rapidly press the power button five times. For a Samsung Galaxy, press it three times. Confirm yours under Settings > Safety & Emergency > Emergency SOS.
- Safety Check-In: On Android 12 or newer, use the Google Personal Safety app to set a timer when working remotely. If you don’t check in, emergency contacts are automatically alerted with your location.
RABI’s Farmers Aid app can be downloaded from
- iPhone / iPad (Apple App Store): FarmersAid on the App Store
- Android (Google Play): FarmersAid on Google Play
