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British traveller, 23, loses arm after accident on farm in Australian Outback

Henry Dunn underwent an arm amputation after an accident on a farm in Australia  (Henry Dunn/Instagram)
Henry Dunn underwent an arm amputation after an accident on a farm in Australia (Henry Dunn/Instagram)

A 23-year-old British man has told how he lost an arm in a grisly accident on a farm in the Australian Outback during a year abroad.

Henry Dunn was working on a cattle station in the Northern Territory when the lower half of his left arm was crushed in a machine and had to be amputated. The accident happened on November 15.

Mr Dunn’s year abroad began last January, when he flew out to Thailand before travelling through southeast Asia, then to New Zealand and finally Australia.

There, he spent three months working on a cattle station, learning to drive tractors, a forklift truck and ride a motorbike to move cattle between paddocks.

“As I approached my last week before heading on to Perth, I was involved in a serious accident,” said the Cardiff Metropolitan University graduate, recounting his ordeal on an online fundraising page.

Mr Dunn had been using a tool that drives fenceposts into the ground when his left arm was crushed, according to LBC.

He was flown 500km (310 miles) to the Royal Darwin Hospital where he underwent emergency surgery, in which the lower part of his arm was amputated.

“It wasn’t the end to my travels as anyone expected,” he wrote.

Mr Dunn has now returned to the UK. Updates posted on his Instagram page show him undergoing physiotherapy and exercising rigourously, while trying various prosthetics for his lower arm.

“My ‘residual limb’ is changing shape all of the time as it goes through different stages of healing,” he wrote in Instagram. “Doctors explained the healing like baking a pie. The outside looks ready but inside is still raw; still a long way to go.”

Henry Dunn spent three months working on a cattle farm in Australia’s Northern Territory (Henry Dunn/Instagram)
Henry Dunn spent three months working on a cattle farm in Australia’s Northern Territory (Henry Dunn/Instagram)

Henry has received a payout through the Northern Territory Workers’ Compensation Scheme, but has launched a fundraiser to help cover costs not covered, such as leisure activities and courses to aid his recovery. He has so far raised around £8,000.

”What’s most important now is building a strong foundation for both my physical and mental recovery,” he wrote on the fundraiser, where his response to the accident has been praised as “inspirational”.

“I am optimistic about the future and the challenges to come.”