Lakeshore Advance, 2012-10-17, Page 17Wednesday, November 2, 2011 • Lakeshore Advance 25
Huron County farmer speaks about farm safety
after surviving 'borilfylng' accident with PTO shaft
Chris Palmer speaks at Huron Federation
of Agriculture annual meeting
aSusan
AgeNfrenmark
A couple of threads from a pair of worn
coveralls almost killed East Wawanosh
farmer Chris Palmer when they pulled
him into a PTO (power take -off shaft) on
his farm three and a half years ago.
"You can't imagine how fast it hap-
pened. If I had jeans on, I would have died
because they wouldn't have ripped off,"
he told members of the Huron Federation
of Agriculture as the keynote speaker at
their annual meeting in Seaforth last
Thursday.
Palmer, who had been farming for 34
years, said he was doing chores after sup-
per during a typical day, which had begun
with chores at 5 a.m., been filled with an
off -farm job in Guelph and continued into
the evening trying to keep up with work
on the farm.
During the accident, which took only
seconds to mutilate his body and change
his life forever, Palmer felt a tickle at his
knee before ending up sitting shocked
and naked on the other side of the PTO,
which tipped off all of his clothing but the
collar of his t -shirt. His leg was gone at the
knee and he also had a broken wrist,
elbow and ribs.
"111lk about horror - I couldn't believe it
but the brain kicks in and you go into sur-
vival mode, taking stock of the condition
you're in. My leg was gone at the knee but
the tibia bone was still there and licked
clean. My right leg was perpendicular to
my body and I didn't know where my right
ani was. All I could feel was my left hand
and my left hand hurt," he said.
Palmer said he quickly ripped off the
collar of his t -shirt because he was afraid it
would get caught in the PTO shaft again
and drag him through it again.
After realizing that he was still breath-
ing, he decided he needed to try and go
for help.
"I prayed to God to give me the strength.
I remember grabbing the tread of the trac-
tire and forearming my way out. I
ched my way around the tire and out
into the gravel. I got out 15 feet and
stopped - I couldn't do it anymore," he
said, adding that he knew his 78 -year-old
Dad was doing chores in another shed
and tried calling for help but had no idea
how loud or long he was able to call.
"I couldn't do it anymore and resolved
that I was dying and just laid down, he
said, adding that he learned later that he
lost 80 per cent of the blood in his body
during the accident.
Palmer shared that he was amazed to
find that he experienced something like
the stories he'd heard about the light at the
end of the tunnel at the moment of death.
"It happened to me. I was walking - yes
walking - down a lit hallway and came to
an intersection and remember thinkdng
that after all I'd been through, I couldn't
believe I still had to choose what direction
to go. I chose left because I knew my
house was that way and I wanted to go
home," he said, adding that he woke
shortly afterwards when his father
touched his shoulder.
"My Dad woke me up and I said, 'Dad,
I'm in trouble."'Ihe poor man had walked
for 100 metres seeing a white blob of meat
and bones in the gravel and I imagine that
every step he'd wondered, 'Is that my son?
Is he alive or dead?" said Palmer.
His father ran to the house to call 911
and alerted Palmer's wife Donna about
the accident. As a nurse, she got towels
and blankets and tried her best to look
after him until the emergency workers
arrived.
"The first guy on the scene was OPP
officer Vu Pham. 1 He gave Donna his card
and told her to call if there was anything
he could do for her," he said.
Palmer said that when the ambulance
arrived, the paramedics had a tough time
figuring out how best to load him into the
ambulance because he was "a mess" But,
he remembers every bump in the road to
the Wingham hospital and being loaded
into a helicopter headed for 1.ondon.
At one point during the helicopter ride,
he stopped breathing and had a ventilator
tube shoved down his throat, damaging
his vocal chords.
"I can't sing very well anymore but I'm
here," he said.
Shortly after Palmer arrived in London,
another farther from Kincardine was
brought into the hospital after a manure
spreader accident but he died.
Palmer spent four months in hospital,
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Chris Palmer, of East Wawanosh, speaks
at the Huron County Federation of
Agriculture annual meeting In Seaforth.
being fitted with a prosthetic leg at Park -
wood hospital and learning how to use it.
I le said he learned to walk again using a
"Chevy" prosthesis but elected to buy a
$25,000 "Buick" with computerized
hydraulics in the knee when he left the
hospital.
"All in all, the leg is $40,000 and only
lasts about five or six years until I have to
get another one. I'd rather get a new truck,"
he said.
Ile said the more expensive leg allows
him to go down stairs and sit in a chair
with control rather than Just falling.
"When you're in the hospital sur-
rounded by other amputees, you're one of
the gang. But, when I got home, it hit me
that I'm different, set apart," he said.
He said the first time he walked into his
kitchen after the accident, he took off his
shoes and it hit him that his foot was fake,
made of carbon fibre and rubber.
"A flood of sorrow passed through my
mind but I realized my only recourse was
to move on so 1 put my slippers on," he said, adding that he and
his wife ended up dancing around the kitchen at his
homecoming.
"We danced and she cried and that was great," he said.
Palmer credited the support and prayers of fluidly, friends and
neighbours for the gains he's made during rehabilitation. He and
his wife still enjoy walks together and by bolting a second pedal
onto his mountain bike, hes still riding his bike with his wife. Ile
was released from hospital at the soybean harvest and was deter-
mined to get into the combine and do the job.
"I said if 1 can get into the combine, we're going. So, we got out
the stepladder and we did it. l got some help from the neighbours
and we got the beans and corn done. It was good for the neigh -
lours to see 1 was out there trying," he said.
Palmer said he told his friends from the beginning that they
should call him Stumpy or I.inpy so the accident needn't cause
any discomfort between them. After joking that the barn cats had
likely been eating the tones and flesh ripped from his body dur-
ing the accident, a friend cautioned him to watch for barn cats
following him when he got home.
While he is not able to farm all 300 acres of his property any-
more, Palmer said he recently got a job as parts manager for a
farm equipment dealership in I.ucknow, which was "the hest
birthday present my wife ever received."
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