Last week I listened to Rural Route Radio with Trent Loos and Kyle Bauer and they discussed the family out east that perished in a manure pit while trying to save each other. Farm safety should be a top priority on any farm…but often it’s only until you have a tragedy like ours that you decide to change.
On April 13, 1999 Bobby was backing into the barn wtih a load of corn silage in the skid steer and didn’t see our son Jake, then only 22 months old. He backed over him, felt the lump but thought it was a lump of feed. When he got off the skid steer to start the mixer he saw Jake’s sweatshirt between the tires and realized what he had done. He carried him into me where I had begun milking. There is no scarier feeling than to see your screaming child with a blue face, droplets of blood coming from his eyes and nose and knowing you can do nothing but wait for the ambulance to arrive.
He was taken to the local hospital and life flighted to a children’s hospital 2.5 hours away from us. With no cell phones and a 2.5 hour drive, I can’t begin to explain to you the wide range of emotions we went through as we made that long trek not knowing that when we arrived if he would be dead or alive.
I had to convince myself that he had died so it wouldn’t be so difficult when I actually was told the news. In my mind, I planned his funeral, cleaned out his room and thought about what our daily lives would be like without Jake. As a mom I felt an overwhelming amount of guilt for not keeping him safe and knew I would have to live with that the rest of my life.
When we arrived, my dad met us in the parking lot and when he said Jake was still alive, I broke down in tears.
After a week in intensive care on a ventilator, they finally determined Jake had a broken femur. He spent the next 8 weeks in a body cast and believe me a body cast with a hole in the back to change his diaper wasn’t a pleasant experience for any of us. But we were so happy that God saved Jake we really didn’t care what we had to endure.
Jake is now a normal little boy with ambitions of farming. He can now drive that skid steer but safety on our farm is very important. We didn’t change our focus on farm safety for just a couple of weeks, it has become a lifestyle change. And every time I’m asked to speak, I include this story because you can never stress safety enough and because if God can save my child, I want to give him as much credit as possible.