Nothing Runs Like a Deere
Nothing Runs Like a Deere
Yesterday while working in Fort Worth, I received a call there was an accident on the farm and Dad was on his way by Careflight helicopter to Harris Medical Center. He had been in a tractor accident. I was in the parking lot next door and came directly to the ER.
As I arrived at the ER, I received a call from my brother in law, Ken. It seems that while Mom and Dad were moving hay from a field to near their house, Dad was run over by the tractor. Being the first to the ER, a security guard escorted me to a family room and immediately one of the hospital chaplains came to see me. He had just come from seeing Dad. He said Dad was alert and on his way for a CT scan. He told Dad he would pray for him and he said Dad thanked him. I refrained from telling the Chaplin of the study just completed about prayer. It seems that patients who know they are prayed for in fact may have more complications than patients that do not know.
Mom gave me the story of what happened………… They were through loading the truck using the tractor to lift the large round bales of hay. Mom was going to drive the tractor back to the house, about a two-mile trip. Dad came over and stood between the front and rear wheels to put the tractor in road gear with Mom seated on the tractor. The tractor immediately lurched forward. Either the clutch was not engaged or it immediately disengaged. Dad was knocked beneath the rear wheel. Mom stopped the tractor within a few feet and came back to Dad.
Dad sat up and then lay back on the grass. The nearby road was very lightly traveled so Mom got back on the tractor to go home and call 911, about two miles at around 15 mph. When she was almost home, she managed to stop some gas field workers to call 911. When the EMS came, they immediately called for Careflight based on the possibility of internal or head injuries.
The paramedics asked Dad if he had ever ridden in a helicopter. “No, but I built them for 24 years.” He later remarked that his first helicopter ride was pretty rough.
When I first saw Dad, his head above and around this right eye looked as if part of a softball had been inserted beneath the skin and then painted various shades of purple, red and blue. His right ear, which was badly injured, was heavily bandaged. The actual injuries consisted of, in addition to the ear, a fractured skull, broken ribs on both sides of his chest, a broken collarbone and quite a few bruises and abrasions. Later that night he was doing well enough that he and the plastic surgeon listened to the baseball game as his ear was being repaired.
This is now two days later and he is doing pretty well. No internal or brain injuries have surfaced to this point. He is in the Trauma ICU, but it seems pretty much for observation only. The ribs are sore and his head around his right eye is swollen and discolored. He has many small abrasions and bruises. His ear looks pretty much like an ear again. The single piece of cartilage in his ear was in about 30 pieces before the reconstruction. He is getting a couple of units of blood today because his hemoglobin remains low.
He thinks he will get out of the ICU today and probably out the hospital in a couple of days. That seems overly optimistic, but maybe when the medical staff realizes he needs to finish moving the hay, they will expedite his release. Probably not.
Nothing makes you appreciate the fragility of life like hanging out a couple of days around the ER and ICU units of a trauma center. We are hopeful that Dad will have a complete recovery, but I look around and see the other families and patients with lives forever changed.
Yesterday while working in Fort Worth, I received a call there was an accident on the farm and Dad was on his way by Careflight helicopter to Harris Medical Center. He had been in a tractor accident. I was in the parking lot next door and came directly to the ER.
As I arrived at the ER, I received a call from my brother in law, Ken. It seems that while Mom and Dad were moving hay from a field to near their house, Dad was run over by the tractor. Being the first to the ER, a security guard escorted me to a family room and immediately one of the hospital chaplains came to see me. He had just come from seeing Dad. He said Dad was alert and on his way for a CT scan. He told Dad he would pray for him and he said Dad thanked him. I refrained from telling the Chaplin of the study just completed about prayer. It seems that patients who know they are prayed for in fact may have more complications than patients that do not know.
Mom gave me the story of what happened………… They were through loading the truck using the tractor to lift the large round bales of hay. Mom was going to drive the tractor back to the house, about a two-mile trip. Dad came over and stood between the front and rear wheels to put the tractor in road gear with Mom seated on the tractor. The tractor immediately lurched forward. Either the clutch was not engaged or it immediately disengaged. Dad was knocked beneath the rear wheel. Mom stopped the tractor within a few feet and came back to Dad.
Dad sat up and then lay back on the grass. The nearby road was very lightly traveled so Mom got back on the tractor to go home and call 911, about two miles at around 15 mph. When she was almost home, she managed to stop some gas field workers to call 911. When the EMS came, they immediately called for Careflight based on the possibility of internal or head injuries.
The paramedics asked Dad if he had ever ridden in a helicopter. “No, but I built them for 24 years.” He later remarked that his first helicopter ride was pretty rough.
When I first saw Dad, his head above and around this right eye looked as if part of a softball had been inserted beneath the skin and then painted various shades of purple, red and blue. His right ear, which was badly injured, was heavily bandaged. The actual injuries consisted of, in addition to the ear, a fractured skull, broken ribs on both sides of his chest, a broken collarbone and quite a few bruises and abrasions. Later that night he was doing well enough that he and the plastic surgeon listened to the baseball game as his ear was being repaired.
This is now two days later and he is doing pretty well. No internal or brain injuries have surfaced to this point. He is in the Trauma ICU, but it seems pretty much for observation only. The ribs are sore and his head around his right eye is swollen and discolored. He has many small abrasions and bruises. His ear looks pretty much like an ear again. The single piece of cartilage in his ear was in about 30 pieces before the reconstruction. He is getting a couple of units of blood today because his hemoglobin remains low.
He thinks he will get out of the ICU today and probably out the hospital in a couple of days. That seems overly optimistic, but maybe when the medical staff realizes he needs to finish moving the hay, they will expedite his release. Probably not.
Nothing makes you appreciate the fragility of life like hanging out a couple of days around the ER and ICU units of a trauma center. We are hopeful that Dad will have a complete recovery, but I look around and see the other families and patients with lives forever changed.
Comments
Amazing, Terry. Glad he's going to be OK. When he's all well, it's going to make a great story ... for generations to come!