A DAIRYMAN died from a rare brain injury three days after an accident at a Purbeck milking parlour, an inquest has heard.

Father-of-one David Cheadle, 47, informed his family that he had hit his head at Barn Dairy Farm in Kimmeridge on September 4 last year.

His wife Kim told a Coroner’s Court at Bournemouth Town Hall how he had complained of a headache which eased the following day.

But on Saturday, September 6, it “returned with a vengeance” and she had given him painkillers.

“He was feeling drowsy and was concerned about milking the following day; he normally rose at 3.30am,” she said.

The next morning Mrs Cheadle found her husband unconscious in their farm cottage and called for an ambulance.

He was taken to Poole Hospital but transferred to Southampton neurological unit where a scan showed that he would not recover from a brain injury.

His life support machine was switched off and his organs donated for transplant.

Consultant Dr John Hell said the injury was “fairly rare” and could have arisen from a “relatively minor trauma”.

Jurors heard how Mr Cheadle had told his daughter India that he had hit his head on a tap at the end of a vacuum pipe.

John Hole, a partner of GWR Hole & Sons which runs Barn Dairy Farm, stressed that the Health and Safety Executive had decided that the tap did not pose a hazard in the milking parlour.

He described Mr Cheadle as “an experienced and competent dairyman” and added: “It is alleged that Dave was involved in an accident in the dairy; he didn’t mention that to me.

“I was unaware he had sustained any injury.

“I accept it is physically possible that he hit his head on the tap.”

He dismissed claims that he had asked the family to leave their cottage before Mr Cheadle’s funeral.

Jurors returned a verdict that Mr Cheadle had died as a result of an accident.