Bill Hartley is contracted to assist in the overseeing of the building of a house on a large tract of land about 10km outside Wilderness, in the direction of Sedgefield.
He took his dog for an outing last Thursday when the incident happened.
"While walking a short distance from the house I fell into a buck snare, damaging my shoulder, neck and back in the process," said Hartley. The hole was covered with a black bag and camouflaged with sticks and leaves.
"The hole is 1,6m wide and deep. The fall could have been fatal," he said.
According to Hartley, he is lucky he only got whiplash, with sore ligaments in his shoulder.
"A day later I had to walk on another farm, and boy did I tread carefully. I now have a phobia for walking in the bush," said Hartley.
"My concern is that if owners of property are not made aware of the 'pitfalls' of walking on their own property they too might end up at the bottom of a pit meant for an unsuspecting buck."
The owners of the property, Professor Andreas and Annette Diacon, are currently in Switzerland, while Hartley keeps an eye on the building of their house near Wilderness.
"They are furious," said Hartley.
"They want to preserve the beauty of this area, and love all the wild bucks roaming around. Now the whole project needs to be revised.
"We need to sharpen up the security and install cameras, for instance," he said.
According to Hartley, there have been numerous break-ins at the property and someone even emptied all the water tanks on the very same day that he was caught in a snare.
"We have an ongoing problem with people cutting wood on the property, and they get quite aggressive when we approach them," said Hartley.
"However, we are not sure who the culprit is for this offence."
Building foreman Freddie Andrews (left) and Maron Samuels (in the hole), a worker on the building site, measured the depth of the hole after the incident. "The hole will fit a buck in there beautifully," said Bill Hartley, who ended up in the snare a week ago.
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