A group of rice farmers from the Riverina in southern New South Wales are calling for a Turkish-made semi-automatic shotgun to be banned from sale in Australia after a farmer was left brain-damaged when one misfired.

Lloyd Polkinghorne was given a huge knock to the head when his gun exploded sideways during a routine bird shoot over rice fields.

“I was stationary-firing out the window and the bolt didn’t shut, so when it went off the bullet ejected out but it was only the back of the bullet,” he said.

“It went off with quite a bang and a lot of smoke.

The ATA 5-shot semi-automatic shotgun.
Photo: Lauren Polkinghorne

“I just felt I’d been kicked in the head, it took me totally by surprise.”

Incredibly, Mr Polkinghorne drove home and put himself to bed, but over the following weeks, the true extent of his head injury became apparent.

He had suffered a serious brain injury and a cerebrospinal fluid leak.

“I’d try and drive a tractor or something and I’d just end up with a migraine and in a ball of sweat having to go lie down in a dark room,” he said.

“I’ve had everything from headaches and migraines to post-traumatic stress … and I’ve lost short-term memory and am having a lot of trouble with decision-making.”

‘Now he is a broken man’

Mr Polkinghorne’s days on the family rice farm are over.

“It got to the stage where it was hard enough to get out of bed and get ready and fed,” he said.

Mr Polkinghorne’s wife Lauren said he was now a “broken man”.

“He is a different man, initially we were going through the processes hoping he would get better but now he is certainly a broken man,” she said.

“People don’t see what I see, or what the kids see. It’s hard.”

The Polkinghornes are suing the importer, NIOA Trading, and the local gun distributor.

Both declined to speak publicly while the legal action is pending.

Morton was there when Polkinghorne was injured. Photo: ABC

He found out about the determination through Landline, but insisted his gun was well maintained.

Gun represented ‘good value’

There are up to 300 ATA 5-shot semi-automatic shotguns in use in Australia and the weapon is still being sold.

A handful of rice farmers in the Riverina bought the ATA 5-shot semi-automatic, and Ricegrowers’ Association of Australia president Jeremy Morton was one of them.

“They represented good value, they were made in Turkey and their cost of production is less than somewhere like Belgium … and they produce really top-level guns, so they were a cheaper option,” Mr Morton said.

“For a really good top-quality gun, you pay $5,000 — from my memory it was $1,500.”

Three others had similar problems with their guns but luckily none were injured.

Charles McDonald was shooting ducks feeding on his rice crops at Barham when his gun exploded.

“I was shooting out the window at ducks on the rice, on the third shot, huge explosion, startled me for a bit,” he said.

Mr McDonald considers himself lucky; he escaped the accident without any serious injuries, but has not used the gun since.

Another rice farmer, Peter Chalmers, is convinced the shotgun should be recalled.

“This a very, very dangerous gun in my opinion,” he said.

“It fires without the breach being fully closed and in terms of what happened to Lloyd’s gun, it’s made a mess of his life, so I think it should be taken off the market and they should be recalled.”

ABC