Safety first

As you can see from the lack of posts for the last several months, creating a blog post has not been a top priority in our lives that last few months. Probably a good thing as taking care of our family, house, etc. should be our primary priorities.  As you can see, a blog post has risen to the top again.

Since the last post, things have changed but have also stayed the same in most respects. The weather has turned a lot dryer, but our girls are still growing and changing daily. This post is about another change that has occurred.

While we were drilling wheat in the middle of October, I (Tyler) was waiting on some parts that my brother Tanner was bringing to me.  Instead of the parts, I got a phone call that he had been in an accident. So, I headed for the only vehicle I had other than the tractor I was in, a truck filled with seed wheat. So, I went over to the pickup a couple of miles away where my father was drilling. Thinking it was something minor like he wasn't paying attention and went in the road ditch, my father and I were surprised to see all of the vehicles on top of the hill as we approached the scene.



1. The pickup my brother was driving after it was removed from the scene.

 As you can see from the pictures, it was more than a small accident. They are of the pickup he was driving at the time of the accident. When he came to the top of hill West of our farm, he had a head on collusion with an older man from our community that had been out cutting wood. They were both following the tracks in the gravel road where everyone drives (normally in the middle of the road) and when they got to the top of the hill neither had time to react and hit head on.

When my father and I arrived, the EMT's were there and were cutting into the pickup trying to get Tanner out of the pickup.  No one was working on the other pickup to get to the other gentleman, so it was apparent he was no longer alive.  The EMT's tried to keep Tanner stable while they waited on the life watch helicopter to arrive from Wichita (he was awake the entire time that someone was at the scene). Once the life watch team arrived after he had been in the pickup for an hour and a half to two hours, the EMT's removed him from the pickup.

After an hour ride to Wichita in the helicopter (about 250 miles), the medical team determined that he had a shattered right ankle, broken left femur, broken left wrist, and many bruises and cuts. He had surgery the next day to put a rod in his left leg and plates in his ankle and wrist.  After a week in ICU to watch his breathing, he was moved to another facitility for 2 weeks before he came back to Ness City to our parents house.

After quite a road to recovery, he is doing well. He is now walking with a cane and will slowly get back to walking again without support (cane or crutches) over the next month.

This post is meant as a reminder to all of us that we have to always be on the look out while on the road. All of our family and our neighbors have come to the top of that same hill thousands of times without and incident, but at any time someone could have been coming from the other side and it could have been any one of us in an accident as most everyone drove in the same tracks. It took awhile to break the habit, but I now move over to the side of the road when I come to the top of the hill on a gravel road. There are numerous examples of things that farmers and ranchers do on a daily basis that could be done differently so that they are done more safely. We hope that this post would allow everyone to reevaluate what they do on a daily basis that as they drive down the road or go about their daily chores that they would remain as safe as possible.