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ABC News
Health
Karen Hunt and Elsie Adamo

Bordertown sheep farmer Stuart Staude runs his busy property, and new stud business, from a wheelchair

Stuart Staude, 34, is busy overseeing farmhands preparing his sheep for hot weather before it sets in. He lost stock last summer and isn't taking any chances this season.

Stuart is like any other livestock producer — out every day looking after his sheep, checking fences, organising workers and attending to the never-ending bookwork.

But instead of running the farm from the seat of his ute, Stuart runs it from a wheelchair.

Farming is the family business and, even after a serious workplace accident that almost took his life, Stuart was determined to return to the property near Bordertown, South Australia.

"I would be fourth generation on the farm here," he said.

"From the day I could walk I was involved with the farm with dad and my grandfather.

"I like open space, nature — not so much the snakes —  but being out in the open and not in the office. Everyday is something different.

"I just was determined to come back after my accident to do some sort of farming."

Weeks in a coma as family feared for his life  

Stuart was 21 and working at a seed processing business in Bordertown when he was in a serious accident that crushed his spine. He has no memory of the incident and only knows what others have told him.

"I was working with the supervisor in the shed," he said.

"He left and came back 10 minutes later, found me caught up in the [seed bagging] machine and pulled me out.

"He couldn't find a pulse so he doesn't know how long I was without oxygen."

Stuart was transferred from Bordertown Hospital, then Flinders Medical Centre, to Royal Adelaide Hospital, where he was operated on, with doctors not convinced he would survive.

He spent the next 96 days in intensive care, including three weeks in an induced coma, with his family not knowing if he had sustained serious brain damage.

Due to the accident, Stuart lost 98 per cent of his bodily functions.

"The doctors said because of the level of injury, I would probably not be able to breathe on my own," Stuart said.

"But I was in the ICU so long because the case manager was determined to help get me breathing on my own."

Stuart said his stay in ICU was one of the longest by a patient able to leave and he got through with the help of a big goal – getting back to work on the family farm.

"Because the doctors had told me I may not get home, I was determined to get back here," he said.

"That kind of kept me going."

Navigating a new path

It was about a year before Stuart was able to leave hospital and move back to the farm.

The accident didn't deter him from farming, but it did alter what direction Stuart took.

"(Before the accident) I just probably would have inherited the Merino sheep from him (his dad) and bought the farm off my parents," he said.

"But yeah, I probably wouldn't have gone down the stud road. That was just something that I decided I wanted to do (later).

"My best friend at the time had a stud, and offered to teach me and help get me started."

Stuart has been running his own White Suffolk studs since 2015, using 40 hectares of the 4,870-hectare farm for the breeding operation.

"I'm running around 100 breeding ewes, offering anywhere between 30 to 45 rams in September," he said.

While the risk of becoming bogged in the wheelchair was an issue after heavy rain, Stuart said he was able to get out to check his sheep every day. 

"I've got to be careful where I drive sometimes," he said.

"I've got laneways, rubble laneways, that I can drive on,so I don't have to go into the grass and into the paddock.

"I tend to try and check the sheep twice a day, morning and night, just to make sure that they're OK."

Ambitions to expand

Stuart recently ran his third on-property auction, with hopes of expansion.

"I'd like to have my own 100 acres to run sheep, the stud and all that and expand a bit more," he said.

"But at the moment, I'm happy with just being small and producing high-quality rams.

"I'm as healthy as I can be, so I'll keep going as long as I can really."

Occasionally his two nephews, accompanied by his sister, make the trip from Adelaide to the farm.

"I want to stay farming so they can experience the childhood we had," he said.

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