{"id":897250,"date":"2026-09-19T02:48:11","date_gmt":"2026-09-19T02:48:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/897250\/"},"modified":"2026-09-19T02:48:11","modified_gmt":"2026-09-19T02:48:11","slug":"cheshire-uk-alan-rick-ford-inquest-into-farming-tragedy-in-silage-tank-that-killed-father-son-begins","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/897250\/","title":{"rendered":"Cheshire, UK: Alan, Rick Ford inquest into farming tragedy in silage tank that killed father, son begins"},"content":{"rendered":"

Devastating details have come to light about the father and son farmers who died last month after falling into a slurry tank.<\/p>\n

Alan Ford, 72, and his son Rick, 42, were working on a farm in Aston by Budworth, near Northwich, Cheshire, when they fell into an industrial silage tank around 12.20pm local time on August 26, according to the BBC<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Emergency services raced to the farm and recovered them both from the tank.<\/p>\n

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Both men were pronounced dead at the scene.<\/p>\n

An inquest into the dairy farmers\u2019 deaths has revealed that Alan died in a desperate attempt to save his son, the Northwich Guardian<\/a> reported.<\/p>\n

Rick, a father of five, entered the tank to repair a pipe and became unresponsive.<\/p>\n

In attempt to rescue his son, Alan entered the tank but soon became unresponsive himself.<\/p>\n

The inquest at Cheshire Coroners\u2019 Court was opened on September 9.<\/p>\n

Coroner Victoria Davies said the inquest was necessary given the unnatural deaths of the two men, who were both well-known and regarded within farming communities.<\/p>\n

To allow time for a joint investigation into the tragedy, the case has been adjourned.<\/p>\n

Alan was formerly chair of the Cheshire Agricultural Society and after their deaths a spokesperson paid tribute to the father-son who died in \u201ca tragic farming accident\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cAlan retired as Chairman and Director of the Society in April this year and Rick has been a Director of the Society for several years,\u201d the post read.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe Ford family have worked tirelessly for the Society for many years and both Alan and Rick will be very sadly missed by everyone who knew them.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe wish to extend our thoughts, sympathy and prayers to the families at this very difficult time.\u201d<\/p>\n

The comment section of the Facebook post was flooded with tributes for the pair.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe are absolutely astonished and deeply saddened for the loss of two wonderful people who gave so much fantastic support to the community,\u201d wrote one.<\/p>\n

\u201cBoth Alan and Rick were such real gentlemen, always a pleasure to spend some time in their company,\u201d added another.<\/p>\n

The inquest is set to resume on February 25.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Devastating details have come to light about the father and son farmers who died last month after falling…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":897251,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[43,44,41,39,42,40,5429,1720],"class_list":["post-897250","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headlines","tag-headlines","tag-news","tag-top-news","tag-top-stories","tag-topnews","tag-topstories","tag-uk","tag-world"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/897250","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=897250"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/897250\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/897251"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=897250"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=897250"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=897250"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}