A Quebec coroner is urging the province’s professional farmers association to increase efforts to educate its members on the dangers of slurry pits.

Coroner Nancy Bouchard made the recommendation in reports on the deaths of a couple east of Montreal killed from asphyxiation due to exposure to hydrogen sulphide inside a manure pit at their farm.

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Bouchard says that on Oct. 4, 2024, a 44-year-old farmer descended a ladder into a slurry pit on his farm in Ste-Christine, Que., probably to conduct repairs because he had tools with him.

The coroner says the man’s 40-year-old partner found him unconscious in the pit and tried to rescue him, but lost consciousness on the ladder and fell backward onto his body.

The man was declared dead at the scene, and the woman died in hospital 18 days later.

Bouchard says manure pits can contain hydrogen sulphide, carbon dioxide, methane, and ammonia, adding that those gases when combined with a lack of oxygen can cause fainting in seconds and death in minutes.