Saturday 9th August 2025.
Part Five.
"I didn't mean anything by what I said, I just dread the thought of another accident, that's all." He said, referring I think to his previous comment about me being able to drive the tractor.
Of course this last statement begged a question, and because I never asked it, he went on.
"Worst day of my life it was."
Even I could no longer resist. So as I was now in the field and traveling in the direction indicated by his pointing finger I decided to ask, "Oh, did you have an accident, what happened?"
"No not me, didn't Ken tell you?"
"Don't think so, what happened?" My interest peeking in the red zone at this point.
"My mate John - - - - - who owns this place got his leg took off in the baler!!"
I went cold, and suddenly everything fell in to place. Doing some baling for a guy who had an accident, I never thought to ask what the accident was, assuming out of a lack of real interest, he like hurt his back or something, and more to the point, no one told me. That's the reason for all the doubts, this morning when I was leaving.
"OMG, you're joking, what happened? How?" My baler suddenly becoming a monster on my back, about to gobble up one of my limbs. Thankfully they only usually attack when provoked by careless people.
"John's a lucky man!" Stated Lou with some satisfaction in his voice.
What a fantastic piece of luck, I was thinking to myself, as I waited to be enlightened. Lou went on to say how the guy got a blockage in the pick up reel and for some bazaar reason thought the best way to clear it was to use his right foot - while the baler was still running. This is where the guy gets lucky, because instead of being dragged in to the baler and swallowed whole, and so becoming bedding for the cattle shed, it pulled his leg off at the knee instead. I guess that was lucky in some weird sort of way! But that's not the end of his good fortune. Because not only does this man get lucky once. Seems to me like he has all the luck! The next bit of luck comes as he was laid out bleeding to death on the ground. His phone in the tractor, his only hope is to shout for help, which given his location he was very lucky that Lou, who was sitting in his garden, probably eating a huge ham sandwich, heard him. It seems that Lou detected something wasn't right on account of someone shouting HELP!! So ran over to investigate. If you believe the 'running' part of that statement you have either a better imagination than I or you didn't read the earlier part of the story.
Running or not, it seems that Lou is the hero of the story. Applying baler twine tightly around what was left of the leg while avoiding blood spurting in his face, and at the same time calling for the ambulance who arrived just in time to save the poor man. So well done Lou! Living proof, just about, that hero's come in all shapes and sizes.
I feel that he let himself down a bit though by telling me before I started rather than when I got finished. It gave me a very strange feeling. Especially when I got to where the row of straw stopped and there was evidence of a carry on amongst the straw rows. Thankfully there was no blood, you know what I'm like about that sort of thing. I'm not sure what happened to the leg either, I suppose it ended up in the guys evil baler. I never came across it anyway, even though it was hard not to keep an eye out for it!
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