Farmer survives five hours stuck in boggy swamp with nose just above water

'I'm not a yogi but I guess you could say yoga saved my life. That and the will to live'

Daniel Miller adopted a yoga position to survive (9News)

A farmer survived five hours with his nose barely above water level after his excavator slid into a boggy swamp.

Daniel Miller was riding his machine on his property when the edge of a dam gave way and a bar on the three-tonne excavator pinned him down.

The 45-year-old said he struck a yoga pose, arching his back for air, until a neighbour heard him shouting 500 metres away.

“I was trapped and had to keep my head up above water using my arms, I guess it was the cobra position,” he told Sydney's Daily Telegraph.

“I'm not a yogi but I guess you could say yoga saved my life. That and the will to live.”

His wife Saimaa praised her husband’s resilience after the freak accident in Charlotte Bay, around 180 miles north of Sydney on Tuesday afternoon.

She wrote on Facebook: “It was literally sheer mental strength and determination to survive that got him through. As well as being fit, strong and healthy.

“[It had] nothing to do with luck. Legendary effort from a legendary man.”

In 2015, an Italian boy survived being trapped under water for 42 minutes, and a man was last year trapped under piles of Chedder and Red Leicester cheese for eight hours.