Luke O’Sullivan always knew he wanted to be a cattleman, but just three weeks after leaving high school a twist of fate on a rural road put his dream, and his life, in danger.
“I was heading to an event and I was on a dirt road near [the north Queensland town of] Mount Coolon and then rolled my car,” he said.
He survived the December 2022 crash, but sustained injuries to his C4 and C5 spinal vertebrae.
“I spent the first Christmas at Townsville Hospital and then I think I was 40 days in intensive care,” Luke said.
“Then I went to the Brisbane spinal unit. I was there from probably January 2023 to March 2024.”
Instead of gearing up to work on his family’s property, he was facing a gruelling recovery and life with quadriplegia.
“I was going to work at home for a year or two, and then expand and go experience different places, different properties,” Luke said.
Despite losing the use of his arms and legs, the former school captain and talented football player refused to give up on his dream of a career in farming.
Luke O’Sullivan (left) had just finished year 12 when a car accident that changed his life forever. (Supplied: Luke O’Sullivan)
Mustering strength
“Luke is a very good cattleman,” his father Barry O’Sullivan said.
From a young age, Barry was convinced his son had a way with animals.
“He’d walk into the cattle yards and the cattle would just become more settled,” he said.
From his earliest years, Luke O’Sullivan had a way with animals. (Supplied: Luke O’Sullivan)
The O’Sullivans, who own a property near Collinsville in north Queensland, have run cattle for five generations.
Barry never doubted Luke would be a part of that.
Throughout the 14-month-long hospital stay after the crash, Luke held on to his dream.
“I definitely knew I was going to go back to agriculture,” he said.
“What was in the air was how?”
His resilience impressed his mother Leanne, who said the moment they got back to the farm, Luke jumped straight back into it.
“His keenness for the industry was his mental saviour because he had purpose and a reason to keep driving through this new change,”
she said.
“When you leave hospital, you then learn to adapt to living back at home with your new normality.
“Luke adapted really well … he’s just got such a beautiful mind and attitude.”
Luke’s family always knew he would pursue a career in the cattle industry. (Supplied: Luke O’Sullivan)
A back-to-work program during Luke’s time in the spinal unit kicked off the discussion about what he could do when he returned home.
“You have all these creative discussions about what equipment we can modify and how we can go about it,” Leanne said.
They started by adapting a buggy so Luke could operate it using the muscles in his upper arms, as he had lost movement in his hands and triceps.
Luke then turned his attention to some technology that was already a staple of his family’s operations — drones.
The O’Sullivan family have modified a buggy for Luke to use. (Supplied)
A gateway to a new world
Luke was trying to figure out how to operate a drone without his hands, when a chance scroll through social media led him to SkyKelpie.
The Cloncurry-based company was offering a scholarship to upskill in using drones to muster cattle.
“I was like, well this is exactly what’s going to be able to help me work through all the difficulties,”
Luke said.
Founder Luke Chaplain launched the annual scholarship intending to partner with organisations helping people pursue a career in agriculture.
“I think there’s only a little bit that we have to do to cater to accessibility, for [people with disabilities] to be a real asset to the industry,” he said.
“I think technology and innovation can really help with that.”
This year Luke Chaplain partnered with Ability Agriculture, an online community group and foundation for farmers and families with disability in agriculture.
Founder Josie Clarke said one of the group’s key initiatives was “focusing on how we can enable awareness and greater opportunities for people with disability in agriculture”.
“I think there’s a really big opportunity there, where technology can help create more accessible workplaces,” she said.
Luke O’Sullivan hopes technology will allow him to work on cattle properties all over Queensland. (Supplied: Luke O’Sullivan)
As the first scholarship recipient, Luke O’Sullivan hopes the initiative will lead him to new ways of working, allowing him live out his dream of building a career in the cattle industry throughout Queensland.
“They’ve (Sky Kelpie) got the technology so you can have the docking in say Roma, and I can control it from my property here, west of Bowen,” he said.
“It’s just opened up a whole door to this other world.”
