Countryfile presenter Sammi Kinghorn has spoken about the terrifying accident that changed the course of her life. During her childhood, Sammi enjoyed regularly helping out on her family’s rural farm in the Scottish borders and following her dad Neil as he completed jobs on the land. On December 2, 2010, aged 14, she was playing on the farm with a friend, when they noticed Neil in a forklift.
While they were jumping around, Neil was ‘beeping his horn and laughing’, and this is when she decided to climb onto the machinery. ‘To this day, I have no idea why I did it,’ she told OK! Neil was completely unaware that she’d climbed inside, and so lowered the forklift bucket, which he’d been using to shovel snow – on top of her. She initially thought her dad, who’d always warned her about the dangers of farm life, was aware of her presence, and joking with her, but it became clear that this wasn’t the case.
‘I started screaming. I felt my back popping and before I knew it my head was in my crotch. I was crushed right down into a tiny ball,’ she recalled.
‘My heart was thumping in my chest. Everything felt really slow and all I could hear was my breath. I remember closing my eyes and thinking, “You’re going to die, and your Dad’s going to think it’s his fault”.
’ After falling on a pile of compacted snow, her legs pulsed and twitched and that was the final time she felt them. Scared of her dad feeling like he was to blame, or losing his farmer job, .
