Don Amell isn’t exactly sure why he took his two children with him that day.
“Usually they are with grandma and they didn’t want to go with me.”
But all three of them know how differently things might have turned out if James, 8, and Neely, 7, hadn’t been along for the ride.
Amell’s son and daughter don’t talk much about the July 6 incident in which their dad was pinned under a combine header for 90 minutes. Don said they’re likely still in shock.
The Amells were in a vacant farmyard near Big Beaver, in Saskatchewan’s Big Muddy area near the U.S. border, to pick up the header. When they arrived they found the trailer it was sitting on had a flat tire.
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Amell said he wasn’t able to pump up the tire so he blocked the machinery and removed it.
But the blocks collapsed under the weight of the header, which pinned him. He was lying on his right side with his left leg on top.
There was only one choice: James would have to drive the Dodge Ram and try to find help.
He had learned to drive last summer and was able to stretch to reach the pedals and still see out the windshield. Neely stayed to comfort her father.
James returned after no one was home at the first farm Don directed him to, about eight kilometres away. A second trip turned up Boyd and Emily Sjogren, who called 911 and directed the ambulance after James took them back to the accident scene.
Since news of the incident broke, Amell has been talking to reporters from across Canada.
He finds the level of interest surprising but attributes it to “the amount of responsibility that (James) took on, driving the roads that he did.”
He said his life really did flash before his eyes as he lay there in blistering heat wondering if he was bleeding to death under his coveralls.
“I was trying to move around. I could feel the top of my left leg but not the bottom. My right leg was asleep pinned under my left leg, and my right arm had gone to sleep under my left arm.”
He praised Neely for talking calmly to him the entire time they waited for help to arrive.
At Regina General Hospital, doctors inserted a rod from his pelvic bone to his knee to treat a broken femur. The guard on the header also punctured his leg.
Six days later he returned home, where he is still in considerable pain. He said his left leg has swelled to twice the size of his right leg and it could be that way for two months.
Amell has 100 cows and 350 acres seeded to flax and lentils. He also farms 3,000 acres with his father-in-law and works at the Luscar mine at nearby Coronach.
He’ll be off work for four to six months.
Last week a brother-in-law from Manitoba was cutting hay for him, and Amell said offers of help from the community have been overwhelming.
Reflecting upon the accident, Amell said he knows of at least one thing he should have done differently.
“I didn’t tell my wife (Shannon) where I was going,” he said.
With virtually no cellular phone coverage and neighbours that are few and far between, he said farmers have to remember to let people know what they’re doing and where.
Safety is a huge issue at the mine, he said, and it should be no different in farming.
He added there have been a couple of deaths from farm accidents in his area this year.
“We have to remember to take our time and think about what we’re doing. It’s easy to say, harder to do.”
