Crushed

An Amazing True Story

By Kathryn Mann

Phelps L.L.C.

Copyright © 2013

All rights reserved.

ISBN:  978-1484019306

CONTENTS

The Accident - 5

Photographs – 52

Bob’s Prayer of Thanks – 63

Healing Verses - 66

Medical Documentation - 69

Thank you to the medical professionals who cared for Bob, to the prayer partners whose compassion and prayers touched his heart, and to his family and friends whose love and support meant so much.

THE ACCIDENT

Agnes smiled at her husband and said, “Don’t get caught up in some project out there. I don’t want you eating another warmed-over dinner.”

Sixty-six-year old Bob Peterson winked at his wife then slid his arms into his coat sleeves and pulled up the collar. He opened the door and held it against a cold gust of wind as he turned to look back at her. The wind blew her soft, brown curls back from her face.

“I’d rather just stay inside with a cup of hot coffee,” he replied.

“I’ll start a pot in a little while.”

Bob stepped outside and headed out to the barn to do the evening chores. As he leaned into the wind that tugged at his coat, he moved quickly, wanting to finish and get back inside to eat the baked chicken dinner Agnes was preparing. Sleet pelts blew in at a slant, pricking his face and gathering in white patches on the ground.

Bob climbed onto his old tractor and turned the key. It sputtered a few times and then coughed up puffs of smoke that the wind carried away. He played with the choke a bit to tweak the engine. It needed some work—he’d been meaning to get round to that. He let out the clutch, and the big tires rolled forward.

His daughter’s old black mare raised her head and watched Bob make his way past the barn and down the muddy lane toward the row of big, round hay bales. Her long black mane and tail whipped in the wind, and her thick winter hair looked like soggy wool. A few younger horses flagged their tails as they ran.

To Bob’s right, the ground rose sharply upward, and to the left, it dropped away from the fence line and dipped into the horse pasture below. The tractor tire sank into a rut and plodded through the freezing mud.

Bob reached the bottom of the hill, drove around the curve at the back fence corner, and approached the hay row. Of the long row he’d started with last fall, only two of the bales were left. He pierced the front-end forks into one of the giant bales, and the engine revved to lift its thousand pounds. He backed it out of the row.

A faint light from the distant house glowed for a moment and then disappeared behind the hill as he brought the bale back up the slippery lane. A chain clunked against the tractor as it swayed. Dark, saturated tree branches drooped over from the high side of the hill where the lane cut through it and swayed in the gusts of wind. Sleet plunked against his jacket and freezing mud squished to the sides beneath the weight of the large, slow-moving tires.

The back end of the tractor slid sideways, dangerously close to the fence and toward the hill that sloped down into the pasture. Bob reached quickly for the hydraulic control lever to lift the bale a little higher and transfer some weight to the back tires for traction. The tires spun, dug into the lane, and chugged forward again, but the bale obstructed his view. He leaned to the side to see better.

Suddenly, the tire bounced over a large stone. Bob lurched backward; his hand still on the lever that controlled the tractor’s hydraulic arms, these shot upward to their full thirteen-foot height. The force ripped the bale from the forks. It catapulted up and then, in what seemed like slow motion, dropped toward him, looming larger and larger.

“Oh God!” He screamed. “I don’t want to die.”

Shocked, he held his breath, and in that split second he thought, I’m going to be killed.

The bale slammed into Bob’s chest and broke the seat beneath him. His spine bent backward and gave way to the pressure. He choked as hay chaff flew into his face and sharp stubble cut his skin.

With most of his body pinned beneath the bale, Bob dug frantically with his right hand to pull the hay away from his face. His lungs burned for air. He ripped at the bale and strained his head toward his right, desperate to find relief from the pressure and the choking cloud of chaff—and desperate to reach the key and stop the tractor before it crashed through the fence and toppled down the hill.

Agnes peeked into the oven to check the chicken and then started to peel some potatoes. Her grand kids, Christy, sixteen, and Rob, thirteen, were in the other room with homework and television, and her daughter Kathy would be home from work soon. Kathy and the kids had moved back in after her divorce.

Agnes stared at the window for a moment. The sun hovered just above the horizon behind the dark gray clouds and beads of water mixed with ice hit the glass and slid down. She sighed.

Agnes put the potatoes into the pot and started some fresh coffee for Bob. He liked a hot cup of coffee when he came in from the cold. He’d sit with it and sip as they talked and “solved the world’s problems,” as he put it. Those bright blue eyes of his still had that sparkle. She smiled. It didn’t seem possible that they had been married for fifty years. It didn’t seem possible that they already had teenage grand kids.

Agnes met Bob at a dance. She had been a wallflower back then, so shy, so alone. And then he came and smiled at her, took her by the hand, and swept her off to the dance floor—and into a life together. She could always depend on Bob to get through anything. He had that special smile that seemed to say, “Don’t worry. It will be okay.” He was an engineer by trade, retired now, but a philosopher at heart, and he could talk and talk all night long about so many different things.

On the lane, the tractor had slid into a rut, bogged down, and stalled. The steel hay forks, which weighed about four hundred pounds, had given way and hurtled toward Bob, the chain thrashing through the air behind them.

Bob woke up on the ground, on his back, with his head against the front of the tractor’s big back tire. He didn’t know how long he’d been out, but it wasn’t dark yet, although he could sense that the dusk was coming soon. The tire’s tread loomed over him, and cold globs of mud oozed and dropped onto his face. His body lay at oddly distorted angles, pasted into the mud. He tried to remember how he had gotten there. The bale, he thought. What happened to it? He didn’t know. He also did not know how he’d gotten out from under it or how he’d gotten off the tractor.

Dark clouds, overflowing with their persistent sleet and rain, moved slowly through the sky. The wind threw tree branches into a muffled clatter, and somewhere, far away, he heard the faint sounds of traffic on the road.

Oh, thank God, he thought. I’m still alive. I’m alive!

He lifted his arm and pain blasted through his chest. Blood ran in wet streaks down his hands from slices and cuts. His breath came in short, painful gasps.

“Help!” The word barely escaped Bob’s lips. His body felt powerless.

“Help!” He called out again. He tried to move but couldn’t. “Oh God, help me! Somebody! I’m paralyzed.”

Icy water slid down the lane and pooled around him, saturating him to the skin. Mud seeped through his collar and chilled his back.

No one would come looking for him for a while yet, and darkness would fall soon. He wondered who would find his dead body. No, Bob thought, as he shuddered. He knew he had to try to roll onto his stomach. He had to get up the lane, closer to the house, and hope someone would see him.

Bob’s heart fluttered and slammed against his broken ribs. Move, move, he commanded himself, but he was paralyzed from the chest down. He struggled for composure and told himself he must roll over and drag himself forward, or die.

Bob threw his arm over his chest over and over, and pressed his head against the tire to help push his body over. Then he lay exhausted, breathless, and still mired on his back in the mud.

He thought again about his wife, children, and grandchildren. Who would find him there if he died? He cringed when he thought of what they would see. In his mind, he saw the horror in their eyes as they looked at his deformed and bloodied body lying dead in the frozen mud.

“Oh God,” he whispered. “Help me.”

He pressed his head into the tire and pushed against it. Violently, he threw his arms over and over until he had worked up the momentum to roll onto his crushed chest. Searing pain took his breath away.

Bob stretched his arms forward. His jacket’s torn sleeves were heavy with sludge and streaked red with blood. He curled his fingers into the mud and pressed his chin down to help lift his chest. His arms burned against the strain as he struggled to drag himself forward. One inch, he told himself, one inch at a time—if I can get just one inch at a time.

“God help me,” he prayed as he pressed his chin down again and cupped his hands. He thought again about his family, and fear pounded at his heart. I may never see them again. He spat the mud away from his lips and dragged his body forward another inch, and then another.

The fence loomed above him. It went in a line up the hill toward the barn. There were so many posts. Four hundred feet away, the barn’s roof line peaked above the crest of the hill at the top of the lane. Panic choked him. His fingers were freezing and stiff with stinging pain. Oh God, help me. If he could get to the first post, maybe he could get to the next one too. He focused on the first post. One inch, he told himself, one inch at a time. He moved his arms forward and dragged himself a little farther.

The horses ran down the hill, along the fence line, and slid to a stop near him. Their big hooves pranced and chipped the mud into clods that scattered toward his face. The horses snorted then raced away. He felt the ground shake beneath them. They ran back and forth toward the house as if they sensed something was wrong. Bob hoped someone would see them and come out to see why they were running.

He shoved his arms forward again. They trembled. His fingers were numb and bleeding. I have to make it, he told himself. I can’t let my family find me like this. He wondered who it would be. Who would find him? He dug his hands into the mud and strained against the weight of his body and legs. And he asked God to give him enough strength for another inch, and then another.

The post seemed closer. His arms wobbled as he struggled to push them forward. His fingers trembled as he cupped his hands and pushed them into the icy mud. He pressed his chin out and down to help to propel his body. He went another inch forward, and then another.

At the first post he wilted into the mud and closed his eyes. It was so much easier to lie there, quietly, while the rain pattered on his back. The world seemed so far away. His mind drifted to thoughts of his family—to his wife, his two daughters, and his grandchildren—and to the warm love he felt for them. Again, the ground shook as the horses thundered back toward the fence.

Bob opened his eyes. What if his grand kids were the ones to find him dead? Despite the pain and exhaustion, he had to keep trying. He focused on the next post, cupped his aching fingers, and pressed them into the cold mud. He tilted his chin, tightened his lips against the slime, and pressed his head down to help lift his shoulders. Then, with a prayer, he pulled himself another inch, and then another.

Post after post, he dragged his crushed body through the freezing, wet mud, up the lane toward the crest on the hill and the barn, toward a place visible from the house.

Bob’s hands reached level ground. He pulled his chin over the crest of the hill and spotted the house. Dim patches of light glowed from the windows, and a vague human shadow walked past the living room’s big picture window and then disappeared. For a moment he thought he’d seen car lights coming into the driveway; his daughter Kathy would be coming home from work at about that time.

Cold water trickled past his cheek and into the collar of his saturated jacket. He settled his head into a pillow of mud and struggled to breath.

Oh, God, he prayed. Help me. He forced his arms forward, and lifted his head a fraction. One more inch, just one more inch. He curled his fingers and cupped them, then dragged and dragged himself until his chest crested the hill. Then he lay there on level ground, in the freezing rain.

From somewhere deep inside of him, Bob screamed an unnatural, guttural noise. Then the house blurred from his fading vision.

A horse trotted to the fence and snorted at him. Then it whinnied.

Bob pushed his arms forward again and cupped his hands. One more inch, one more …

Near the barn door, the ground dipped into a shallow depression. Bob struggled to pull himself through a puddle of icy water that had settled there, but could not. His body lay in the depression, stiff and unresponsive. He felt death approaching. He labored for breath. He was too far away from the house, and dusk was settling in.

Kathy’s car appeared in the drive. Its lights swung past the barn, over Bob, and then toward the house as she parked.

Bob cried out again. He tried to see through his blurring vision. He didn’t want to die. What would happen to his wife and children? He tried to force his fingers to dig in, but his head just settled onto the edge of the puddle. He closed his eyes.

Oh God, he prayed. I’m in your hands.

Kathy came into the house through the front door and dropped her purse onto the kitchen counter. She slipped off her shoes and shrugged out of her coat. The kitchen smelled of baked chicken and coffee.

“How was work?” Agnes asked, as she put on a worn oven mitt and then opened the oven door. She never made a fancy chicken, just plain, slow baked with salt and pepper, and it smelled delicious.

“I’m tired,” Kathy said, as she grabbed a glass for water. “Where’s Dad?”

“Working in the barn, I think.” She pulled the pan of chicken out of the oven. “He’s been out there a long time.”

“That’s Dad. I wonder what he’s working on.”

The theme song from Bonanza, one of Rob’s favorite programs, came from his room. Kathy went down the hall and opened the door. Rob had plopped down on his bed and was watching TV. “That doesn’t look like homework to me,” she said. “Dinner is almost ready.” She moved down the hall to her daughter’s room. Christy was snuggled under her fluffy comforter, sleeping.

Kathy glanced out the bedroom window and sighed. Frozen rain descended and gathered on the glass. The big elm tree behind the house appeared vague and distorted. It had felt like such a long day.

Both kids were close to their grandparents. When they were little, they both had a small suitcase in which to take all their favorite things to their grandparent’s house, who would take them out for pizza on Friday nights. Grandpa enjoyed helping them build forts and snowmen and often took them out to the pond to feed stale bread to the fish.

Kathy thought about changing her clothes and going out to see what her Dad was up to, but decided to set the table first. As she reached for some plates, the phone rang. It was Rob’s friend Joe, who lived next door.

Rob bounded out of his bedroom to answer the call.

“Dinner is almost ready,” Kathy said.

He hung up the phone. “Going to Joe’s to play video games,” he said as he put his arm through his coat sleeve and bolted for the door.

“What about dinner?” Kathy asked.

“I’ll eat there.”

Kathy took the plates to the table. She smiled at her mom. “I’ll set the table and then go drag Dad in from the barn.”

Agnes smiled back. She watched Rob from the kitchen window.

“My grandson sure is growing up,” she said as she leaned over the kitchen sink, toward the window. “That’s odd. I wonder what Rob’s doing. He just turned around and ran fast toward the barn.”

The side door flew open, and Rob leapt into the room.

“Call 911. Call 911!” His arms flailed to the sides.

“What happened?” Agnes asked him.

Kathy grabbed the phone.

Agnes took Rob’s arm and shook him, “What happened? What’s wrong?”

The 911 dispatcher answered.

“Rob,” Kathy said as she held up the phone, “what do I tell them?”

“Do you need an ambulance,” the dispatcher asked.

“He’s down,” Rob shouted. “Grandpa’s down and bleeding!”

Agnes shook his arm. “Where? Where is he?”

“He can’t get up, and he’s bleeding, he’s bleeding!”

“Yes,” Kathy told the dispatcher. “Yes, we need an ambulance.”

“He’s dying,” Robert yelled, “Grandpa is dying!”

Kathy felt like she’d been hit in the throat with a hammer as her breath caught.

Agnes swayed. “What?” She grabbed Rob by both shoulders. Her fingers pinched into his coat. “Where? Show me.”

“I need an ambulance,” Kathy told the dispatcher again. “Hurry. Please hurry.”

Rob shook himself free from his grandma’s grip. “He can’t get up. I tried to get him up. Are they coming? Is the ambulance coming? By the barn—he’s by the barn!”

Agnes ran from the house.

“They will be there soon,” the dispatcher said with a calm voice.

Robert ran from the house after his grandma. The door bounced on its hinges as a gust of cold wind caught it, and then it slammed into its latch.

When Kathy reached her father, he lay curled and twisted on his side in a shallow, icy puddle near the barn. He moaned, and from somewhere deep inside him, she heard his pain.

Agnes was knelt beside him, clutching his muddy, blood-stained coat and repeating, “Jesus, there’s power in your name. Oh, Bob, I love you, I love you.” Rob hung back, staring at them, and Christy came running from the house.

Kathy dropped to her knees beside her father. Cold water soaked through her pants. At first she thought his right eye was gone, as it was covered with blood that drained out of it onto his gray cheek. Bob’s eye rolled under the blood, and Kathy saw that it was still there.

“Oh Dad. Dad!” Kathy said. She grabbed his hand. It was so cold.

Bob’s mouth gaped open as he tried to talk. “It crushed me.”

Kathy put her ear closer, “What?” Bob struggled to lift his hand toward Kathy’s arm. He rocked his head toward her. “It crushed me. The bale. Oh God,” he cried out. “I don’t want to die!”

Kathy looked around. “What bale?” There was no bale in sight.

“I don’t want to die,” Bob said.

Kathy took his outstretched hand and placed her other hand on his chest. “You are not going to die. The ambulance is on its way.”

“The big bale. I’ve been crushed. Oh God, I’m not going to make it.”

“You’re going to make it.” Kathy said. “The ambulance will be here soon.” She tried to stay calm; she held his hand and listened for the sound of a siren, but only heard the faint hum of distant traffic, the prattle of the persistent sleet, and the clank of the barn door knocking on the hook that held it against the wall when the wind caught it.

Agnes stood up and turned her ear toward the road. “Where are they? They should be here by now!”

Kathy closed her eyes and silently prayed, God, please help Dad.

“Where are they?” Agnes asked again. “The ambulance should be here by now. Go call them again. Tell them to hurry.”

“On the lane,” Bob said. “The big bale crushed me on the lane.”

Suddenly, Kathy realized what he had said. “One of the big bales?” She asked.

At that moment Kathy visualized 1,500 pounds of densely packed hay smashing everything inside his body as it rolled over him. Her silent prayer choked her and, as she looked up into the rain, toward heaven, she felt the reality of death. She raised her hand toward God and with a loud voice shouted, “Please God, we love Dad, please!”

Agnes pressed her hand into Bob’s wet coat, her fingers clutching the fabric. Her wet curls stuck to her forehead as she trembled in her stocking feet.

“Where’s the ambulance?” Agnes asked again. “Where is it? They don’t understand how serious it is. Call them again. Hurry,” she told Kathy.

Kathy looked up at her kids, who were standing together, holding hands and staring at her.

“Is Grandpa going to be okay?” Rob asked, tears running down his cheeks. They seemed so young and vulnerable, and frightened. Kathy knew she had to get them away from the trauma.

“Go to the road,” Kathy told them, “and wait for the ambulance. When it gets here, tell them where we are.”

The two turned and ran toward the road.

“Go call again,” Agnes pleaded again.

Kathy raced back to the house and dialed 911 again.

“He’s dying.” Kathy felt dizzy. “Hurry, he’s dying. He was crushed. Please hurry.”

“They’ll be there soon,” the dispatcher said. “They’re on the way with full sirens.”

“You don’t understand,” Kathy said. “He’s dying now.”

“They’ll be there soon.”

Help, help, Kathy’s soul cried out. Pray, came the answer. She instantly thought of her Christian friend, Pam, and called her. Pam’s voice reassured her. “I’ll start the prayer chain,” she said. Kathy also called her sister, Carol, to let her know Bob was injured and would be going to the hospital, but Carol had already left work. The receptionist said she would try her pager and let her know what was happening.

Kathy grabbed a blanket and her mother’s shoes, and raced back out to her father.

In the distance, the eerie wail of the sirens approached.

Christy and Rob stood beside the road. As the ambulance neared, Rob glanced at his sister. Her face was pale. Her eyes held his for a moment, and then they turned toward the ambulance that blasted through the rain. They waited until it was close enough, then waved their arms and jumped up and down.

Rhonda Greko was part of the EMS team. On top of her other job working for the State of Michigan, she rode the ambulance anywhere from twenty-four to thirty-six hours a week, sometimes more. She loved being able to make a difference in other people’s lives. Five years earlier, she had become the first female officer for Delhi Township. Today she had come to work a half hour early, just in time to be on this call. They had blasted down Aurelius Road with sirens screaming.

The rain fell steadily and froze on the ground. Up ahead she spotted two teenagers on the road, waving their arms. “That must be the place,” she said. The ambulance turned into the drive.

The kids pointed toward the barn. “Grandpa’s been crushed,” they shouted. “Crushed by a big hay bale.”

“Crushed?” Rhonda’s mind shifted gears. She had been dispatched for a man with a head injury. As they came up to the scene, she quickly changed her thought process to deal with the unexpected situation. She grabbed her bag.

Bob lay near the barn in rutted ice with water above it. He appeared bloody and gray. Rhonda’s initial thought was that he was dead. Then she saw a slight movement. He was saturated in freezing water and mud. She needed to get him off the ground, inside, and get the clothing away to see what they were dealing with.

Standard procedure was to roll him onto his back and strap him to the board. Her partners, Chris and Dan, moved quickly to position the board, but when they tried to roll Bob onto it, he immediately let out a groan of agony, almost as if from the abdomen, and rolled himself back onto his left side.

“Let’s take him as he is,” Rhonda said. They got him onto the board, on his side, and rushed him to the ambulance.

The only place Bob didn’t have blood was from of his ears, which would have indicated a skull fracture. The paramedics cut his clothes away. There were obvious multiple deformities in his spine and many fractures in his chest. Rhonda worried he might have a cardiac contusion: internal bleeding in a bruised heart. She made several attempts with an IV, but Bob’s outer blood vessels had shut down. He was already hypothermic.

In most cases, survivability is greatly reduced after the first sixty minutes between an accident and treatment. Bob was past his golden hour.

Kathy ran into the house to get her keys and her mom’s purse and then met the kids at the car in the driveway. She started the car and waited for the ambulance in order to follow it to the hospital. The wind had died down a bit, but still pushed against the car in gusts. The defroster was at full speed, and the wipers cleared the windshield over and over. In the yard, the big elm tree’s dark branches swayed and cast long bouncy shadows in the dusk.

The ambulance seemed to sit forever where it was parked by the barn. Bob and Agnes were both inside, and the doors were all closed.

Christy and Rob sat in the back seat, still and quiet, with wide eyes. They seemed mature for their age, independent and strong, and yet so vulnerable.

“Let’s pray for Grandpa,” Kathy said.

They bowed their heads, and Christy began in her soft and gentle voice: “Dear Jesus, please heal Grandpa and help him…” Her voice gained power, and she raised one of her hands. Her words grew stronger and stronger, and she raised her other hand as she prayed.

Surprised by power in her daughter’s voice, Kathy listened to the prayer and to the deep and beautiful words that came from her daughter’s heart.

The ambulance passed them and went down the driveway with flashing lights.

Kathy held the wheel as the car slid out of the driveway and onto the slippery road. Christy continued to pray as they followed the ambulance until it pulled away from them at high speed and its lights and siren faded away in the distance.

Sixty miles away, Bob’s youngest daughter, Carol, was nearing Detroit with her boyfriend, Dennis, to meet with friends at a Red Wings hockey game. The rain was mixed with snow. It came down hard and steady. Her pager went off, and she saw her work number appear on the screen.

“That’s odd,” she said. “It’s almost six. I must have forgotten something important. Look for a pay phone.” They traveled several miles down the interstate before they found an exit and drove to a restaurant to use the phone.

The receptionist answered the call. “There was an accident,” she told Carol. “Your Dad’s been severely hurt. He’s on his way to the hospital.”

“What happened?”

“I don’t know. Your sister called and said they were on their way to Sparrow.”

Carol hung up and called the hospital and was told that the ambulance was en route. “What happened?” She asked.

“We can’t give out that information on the phone. I’m sorry. You’ll have to talk with your family members when you arrive.”

Carol’s mind raced. She imagined her Dad in his red pickup as some other car slammed into him. She rushed back to their car. “Dad’s been in an accident.” She told Dennis. “They won’t tell me what happened, but it’s serious.” She was shaking.

She cried as they got on the highway and headed back toward Lansing, as the speedometer crept past eighty.

The trauma team met Bob in the Sparrow Hospital Emergency Room in Lansing, Michigan, and began a rapid first survey of the ABCs (airway, breathing, and circulation). The biggest concerns at that point were Bob’s collapsed lung, which had been punctured by a broken rib, and his dangerously low blood pressure.

The second survey, D and E (disability-neurological and exposure), revealed compression fractures in Bob’s spine, multiple fractures in his chest area, and ribs torn from his sternum. He had cuts and lacerations on his face and his right eye, internal damages, and swelling. The odds were not in Bob’s favor.

At the hospital, Kathy and the kids rushed through the big doors near the ambulance bay and met Agnes in the hall outside Bob’s room. A panel of gadgets and plugs covered the wall at the head of his bed. Kathy stood at the door and watched the trauma team working on Bob. Between them, she saw his swollen head with blood smeared across it. One of the team, while wheeling a machine toward Bob’s bedside, saw Kathy watching and quickly pulled the curtain.

Kathy gave Agnes’s purse to her, which Kathy had grabbed when she had grabbed her car keys. Agnes clutched the purse close to her body with her fingers balled around the straps in tight fists. Her dark, wet hair stuck to her forehead and framed her face. Agnes was shorter than Kathy. She stood slightly stooped, and Kathy noticed how she seemed so tender, distant, and fragile.

A nurse appeared and gently touched Agnes on the shoulder to turn her to walk down the hall. “We have a small, private family room right over here,” the nurse said softly. “You can wait there, and we will let you know how he’s doing. There’s some coffee, and a phone in there.” The other three followed.

Agnes sat up straight, tense, with her purse in her lap. The phone sat on a small end table next to her chair. She looked at it for a moment. “Does Carol know?” She asked Kathy.

“I called her work, and they said they would page her and let her know,” Kathy said.

Agnes reached into her purse and took out her tattered, red address book. She turned a few pages then picked up the phone to dial.

Christy and Rob sat quietly beside each other. Rob looked away and quickly brushed his cheek. Christy pulled a pack of tissues with frogs on it from her small purse and gently slipped it into his hand. He nodded and pulled himself together.

Kathy watched her children; Christy, always prepared and tenderhearted, and Rob, sensitive, kind, and strong. It seemed like so little time since they had been toddlers running through the house and playing in the sandbox. Yet they seemed mature for their age. Or perhaps, as a mother, those soft images of children playing would always be a part of what she saw when she watched them, and their maturity would always be just a little startling because of it. Kathy glanced at her mom, who was watching her.

In the hall, gurneys and carts rolled past. People walked by, talking in muffled and indistinct voices. Somewhere down the hall, a woman laughed.

Kathy poured coffee into some short Styrofoam cups and handed one to her mom.

“Thanks,” Agnes said, but rather than drinking from it put the cup on the table beside her.

A short, dark-haired woman appeared at the waiting room door. She wore a large gold crucifix necklace and carried a blue leather Bible. She took a hesitant step forward.

Agnes looked at her. “Who are you?”

“I’m a pastor.”

“Are you just making rounds?” Agnes asked.

“No, the hospital called me.”

“Why did they call you?” Agnes pulled her purse closer. “Is he …?”

“They are still working on him,” the pastor said as she sat down in the chair next to Agnes. “They just thought that I could talk with you, if you wanted.”

Agnes stared forward. “I hope they are keeping him warm,” she said. “He hates to be cold. In the ambulance he was shivering, and I asked them to cover him up with a blanket. He never liked to be cold.”

The pastor nodded softly and waited.

Agnes looked down at her knees. “When I heard the ambulance driver talk with the hospital and say ‘priority one,’ I knew it was serious. I felt like I was floating, and the sirens sounded like they were in the distance, far away.”

Bob’s sister-in-law, Lois, slipped into the room along with a few other family and friends. “Ag’s in shock,” Lois said.

For Kathy, the day seemed so far away; the normal routine of work and dinner and maybe watching a sitcom or two on TV felt strange and remote. The clock’s second hand seemed to hover between each moment.

Kathy thought about her father. Her mind wandered and she thought about his bright blue eyes and grin when he’d ask if she wanted to go get a cup of coffee with him and her mom and sister, and they would go to the restaurant and spend an hour “solving the world’s problems.” She sighed and watched the second hand on the clock face tick forward. He was generous, thoughtful, and kind. In the summer he would jump on the trampoline with the kids, and in the winter he would help them to make the biggest snowball ever for a snowman in the front yard. “They grow up,” he would say. “They don’t stay like this forever, and you have to soak them up while you can.” Then he would wink and leave his work for a little while to go throw snowballs at them.

A nurse appeared at the door. “We are moving him to the ICU. If you want to ride with him in the elevator, you need to come quickly.”

Carol and Dennis arrived at the hospital and rushed through the emergency room doors. The family, who had gathered at the end of the hall, motioned for them to hurry up.

“Where is he?” Carol asked.

“They can’t hold the elevator. Hurry.” Lois pushed Carol toward the elevator. “He’s going to the ICU.” They barely made it through the closing doors.

Carol froze at the foot of the gurney. Her father was wrapped in white blankets. A neck brace was secured stiffly under his chin, and an oxygen mask covered his face. His head was swollen and cut. His sparse hair still had flakes of dried blood in it. She rushed forward and tenderly touched his shoulder as he moaned in pain.

“Dad. Dad, what happened?” Carol grabbed his hand.      He squeezed her hand three times. “I love you too,” Carol said. She looked at Kathy with her eyebrows furrowed in a question.

“He was crushed,” Kathy said. “By a big hay bale.”

Carol stared at her sister. “What?”

The elevator ascended, and then stopped. The doors slid open, and Bob was quickly wheeled out and taken down the hall.

The neurological intensive care unit was on the fourth floor. There were two beds in Bob’s ICU room, and Bob’s was closest to the door. He seemed so frail under the thin, white cotton blanket. The edge of his oxygen mask pushed into the bruised skin around his closed eyes. Plastic tubes in different sizes connected him to various machines. Kathy held his hand and watched the line on the monitor shoot up, peak, and fall, shoot up, peak, and fall.

It seemed impossible that this crushed man, struggling for the strength to live, was her father. It seemed impossible that the frail hand she held was the same one that would pull her right out of her chair to the dance floor at a reception. How could this be the same sixty-six-year-old man who could dance the polka with her until she couldn’t breathe, then trade her in for an energetic replacement? His bruised and swollen fingers lay in her hand.

His cuts hadn’t been stitched yet and gaped open from his swelling skin. His face was so swollen it was difficult to discern his ears. The oxygen mask pressed into his face.

Some of his teeth were missing. The left side of his chest was twice as big as the right, and it rose and fell in spasmodic flutters.

A nurse came in to check the tubes and monitors. “Staring at those monitors will drive you crazy,” she said. ”You need to get some rest.” Then she slipped out of the room.

Agnes stood at the head of Bob’s bed. “Are you warm enough?” She asked him. She arranged the blanket over his shoulders and tucked it in.

Carol stood on the other side. She leaned closer to his ear.

Bob reached for the oxygen mask and pulled it away from his face.

“Am I in the ICU?”

“Yes.”

“There was a priest in here,” Bob said softly, “giving last rites.”

“There are two beds in this room,” Kathy said. “The priest was here for the other man.”

“Is that man still there?” Bob asked.

“No,” Kathy said.

“I’m not going to make it.”

Carol touched his face. “Yes, you are. You’re going to be okay,” Carol said. “You have a really good nurse.”

“Is she cute?” Bob whispered, flashing a faint smile.

“Yes,” Carol said. “She’s really cute.”

The respirator expanded and contracted and made a noise as it pumped air into the tube. It looked like an accordion, and it reminded Kathy of her father’s love for music. He had learned to play an accordion as a young man but he especially loved to sing.

A few years earlier, they had gone to Frankenmuth, Michigan, to celebrate Kathy’s birthday in December. It was an annual family tradition, and Bob always dressed in his dark-blue suit and tie to celebrate. On this particular birthday, they dined at the Bavarian Inn, a big restaurant that had several different dining rooms. They were seated in the main dining room near a big, stone fireplace when an accordion player came in and wandered around the room, singing Christmas carols. He came to their table, and Bob’s bright blue eyes sparkled as he stood up to sing “Silent Night” with him.

After the song, Bob winked at Kathy and smiled.

“Do you know how to sing it in German?” Bob asked the accordion player.

The player primed the instrument and began to play the song again as Bob stood tall and, with an energetic and strong deep voice he sang “Stille Nacht, Heilige Nacht …” While stationed in Germany, Bob had visited the Austrian village, Oberndorf, where the song had been composed, and it was one of his favorites. Bob finished the song. The diners clapped and cheered as the musician invited him to walk with him and sing. Bob’s robust voice traveled down the hall and into the other rooms.

After dinner each year, the family also stopped at the replica Silent Night Chapel next to Bronner’s Christmas store to have a quiet moment among the lights to think about Christmas and what it meant to them as a family.

The bellows inside the respirator sucked the air in and pushed it out into the tube, and Bob’s chest rose and fell as he breathed. He lay still, with his eyes closed.

The next morning, Kathy went into his room. Her mother had spent the night crumpled in a chair beside his bedside.

“They are taking good care of him,” Agnes said.

Kathy worried about her mom, who refused to leave Bob. “When he moves out of the ICU, then I’ll go home to rest,” Agnes said. “Anything could happen, and I want to be here if he needs me.”

Agnes fell asleep crumpled in a waiting room chair. Kathy adjusted a pillow under her head and thought about hospitals. They are places where modesty and vanity seem less important, as loved ones sleep in chairs in wrinkled clothes waiting for news and to be there if they are needed. They are places where total strangers pass in the halls and their eyes meet—they know. They sit in lounges and drink coffee and talk about life and their loved ones, and the outside world seems far away, trivial, irrelevant.

At home, heavy, wet snow drooped over the mud and into the ruts on the lane. Kathy walked down toward the tractor and the hay bale that had rolled into the bank behind it. The tractor’s seat was broken. The forks had come apart and hung twisted around the muffler. Hay chaff littered the tractor and the ground around it, and the fresh scar of a broken tree limb dangled above.

Quiet, alone, and tired, Kathy pulled her coat tighter and leaned on the tractor. It had always seemed like such a peaceful place. She had walked this lane so many times. She had come here after her divorce as she thought about the changes and the impact on her children and family. She had walked it through almost every trial in her life as she looked for solace in the beauty of nature that she loved, and her heart opened to God and the tears had flowed freely, as they did now.

The horses came to the fence and stood quietly as they did so often. They had a beauty and strength about them that Kathy admired. She’d spent many hours with them, lost in thought with the gentle rhythms of their gaits soothing away the heartaches of the day.

The hospital waiting area was a small, windowless room down the hall from Bob’s room. A line of chairs went around the outside walls, and a big, white message board hung on one side. Family names and messages were scrawled at odd angles around it.

Around 2:00 a.m., three days after Bob’s accident, Kathy slipped quietly out of the room and walked aimlessly around the hospital. She stopped in the wide hall that bridged the east and west wings and looked out the floor-to-ceiling windows at the yellow haze of city lights. On the street below, a lone car passed by and turned a corner.

Kathy sat on one of the hallway benches and looked through the tall wall of windows. She had left her mother slouched over a chair next to her Dad. Agnes wouldn’t think of leaving Bob alone at this time. She did promise, however, that she would go home to rest when he was moved from the ICU. Kathy planned to go home in another hour to get some sleep, to be with the kids, whom she’d taken home the day before, and to take care of the animals.

Kathy wondered how many other people at this same moment were staring from windows, facing out from their own trauma. Different places, different situations, yet all standing in the same moment of time, like her. She sighed and leaned closer to the window. She felt pulled aside from life, separated from the busy world, tired, crumpled, and restless, and caught in a place where everything on the outside seemed far away.

For several days, family and friends had come to sit with them, to share a meal in the basement cafeteria, and to visit with Bob and tell him they were there. Church ministers had come to offer prayer and kind words, and Kathy was thankful for all of them. But as she looked out into the night and felt alone in her heart she wondered about God, and life, and eternity. She wondered what it was really like to pass on and leave the world behind.

It’s the little things, she decided, that bring people close to their loved ones, their families, friends, and churches. It’s the little things that we experience in life that found the relationships that were at that time helping support them through their time of crises. Kathy hoped that, in the end, each person took with him or her all those moments.

Kathy also realized how the many times she had sat in a pew at church, glancing at her watch and itching to get on with a relaxing Sunday afternoon, had prepared her for a time such as this. It was from the accumulation of those moments that the foundation was laid, and in that foundation was the strength she needed to get through this.

Down the hall, the elevator bell dinged, and a woman stepped out of it. As she walked by Kathy, their eyes met for a moment. Kathy saw in the woman’s face the stress, the sadness. They nodded slightly at each other, and for just that moment Kathy felt connected, as though they knew each other, as though they understood each other. The woman continued walking, and Kathy turned back to look out the window.

On the fifth day, Bob was transferred out of the intensive care unit. His punctured lung had spontaneously healed, and his vital signs improved. Family and friends lined each side of the corridor and sang, “For He’s a Jolly Good Fellow,” as he was rolled down the hall in his bed. Bob smiled and lifted one hand to acknowledge the moment.

His move out of the ICU encouraged them, and, true to her word, Agnes finally went home to rest.

Bob still had many obstacles to overcome. He had difficulty swallowing and could barely tolerate a spoonful of milk. He had horrible bouts of hiccups that tortured his broken body, and he threw up blood. A heart specialist dealt with fibrillations and swelling, and the potential for blood clots forming due to his immobility were being addressed.

Bob was fitted with a clamshell brace that clamped around him in two pieces, front and back, to support his spine when he sat up. It was a painful contraption, and a hole had to be cut in the front of it over his heart to accommodate the swelling in his chest. And there was still concern about his right eye.

But Bob had a soft smile on his face, and when asked how he was doing, he would say, “I made it one more day. If I can make it one more day, then I think I’ll make it.”

When Kathy walked into her father’s room, he was lying still with his hands crossed gently over his chest and his eyes closed. He had a soft smile on his face. The cassette recorder lay beside him on the bed. When she got closer, he opened his eyes and pulled the earphones off.

Kathy pulled the chair from its usual position against the wall, toward the side of Bob’s bed.

“What are you listening to?” She asked.

He held up the case. It was one of his nature tapes of soft instrumental music with sounds of water and birds. He loved nature, walking in the woods, birds, and animals.

Kathy had so many fond memories of her and Carol in the back of the old station wagon cruising down a dirt road on their way somewhere, with their Dad at the wheel singing his heart out to the tune of some silly song, like “mares eat oats, and does eat oats, but little lambs eat ivy.”

Their mom would sit in the passenger seat with the window open a mere crack to keep the wind from blowing on her just-done-up hair. They would sing along, watching the dust billowing up behind the car and the tall dry grasses bobbing over the road behind them.

Bob turned the cassette player off and handed it to her to set it on the bedside table.

Bob’s one eye was bright blue and the other still bloodshot. Kathy worried about that eye, but the doctor had said it would be okay.

“I could have been out there,” Bob said, then waved his hand toward the poster on the wall with the “Footprints” poem on it. The poem describes a dream, in which the person is walking on a beach with God. They leave two sets of footprints in the sand behind them. Looking back, the tracks represent various stages of this person’s life. At some points the two trails become one, especially at the lowest and most hopeless moments of the character’s life. When questioning God, believing that He must have abandoned him during those times, God gives the speaker the following explanation: “During your times of trial and suffering, when you see only one set of footprints, it was then that I carried you.”

Bob closed his eyes for a moment, then opened them and looked at Kathy.

“You’re going to be okay,” Kathy said.

“If I can make it one more day, I think I’ll make it.” He smiled.

“You’ve got a lot of signatures on your clam shell,” Kathy said.

“And a lot of cards. A lot of people care…” His voice faltered. He looked away and swiped a tear from his cheek. “I’m sorry.”

Kathy pulled a tissue from the box on the hospital bed table and handed it to him.

“People really do care,” he said softly. He choked up again and began to sob.

Kathy sat quietly and respectfully stared at the floor until he regained some composure. She wanted to reach over and cry too, but it was not easy for her to express her feelings. She held on to the need to be strong and not cry, to hold it together all the time.

Bob reached over and took Kathy’s hand. “I love you. I want you to know that.”

Close to tears, Kathy pulled her hand away, adjusted the blanket, and moved the IV line so it would lay flat. “I know. I love you too,” she said.

Bob’s face seemed soft and sad. “Life hasn’t been easy for you.”

Kathy turned away and stared at the window. Behind her, the room seemed so still, so silent. She’d learned to push her feelings aside, to imprison them in some distant place in her soul where they could not really touch her—or hurt her.

“Are the kids at their Dad’s?” Bob asked.

“Yes,” she said.

“I wish things had worked out better for you.”

“Me too,” Kathy said. She pulled the chair up and sat down beside the bed, and Bob grabbed her hand again. When she tried to slip away, he refused to let go. “You are a beautiful person,” he said. “I want you to remember that.”

Kathy looked down at her knees and squeezed her eyes shut.

“It’s okay to cry, you know.” He squeezed her hand then let go.               “You can’t change what happened, but you can choose to let it go. No matter what happens, you can choose to get through today and the next day and the next, and someday when you look back you’ll be surprised at how far you’ve come.”

At home again, Kathy kicked her shoes off at the door. She flicked the lights on and descended the stairs to her apartment in the basement. Agnes had decided to stay at the hospital.

Kathy felt a clash within. Her strong self—who held it together all the time for the kids, for the family, for whatever reason—struggled with her weak self, who needed to find enough trust to let her vulnerable side find comfort and help. She sat on the edge of her bed with an unopened Bible. She could hardly believe how compelled she’d been to pull away from her own emotions when her father had reached out to her.

If her Dad had died, a part of her would have too. She’d have missed the one who always believed in her when no one else did, the one who smiled at her even when she didn’t smile back, the one who told her that she was a beautiful person even when she felt like an empty shell, and the one who took her hand and wouldn’t let it go until she knew that he meant what he had said.

The empty house seemed to press in on her. She put the Bible back on the table, afraid to pray, afraid to face God with the part of her that had been hiding, frightened and hurt. She realized that it would be a long journey to find genuine healing in her soul.

Kathy debated whether to call the prayer line at church. She’d called before, but always for someone else. She wandered over to the phone. She didn’t know, really, what to say or how to ask for help. One step at a time, she told herself. She held the phone for a while, and then slowly dialed the number. She explained her Dad’s situation.

As the man on the other end prayed, Kathy felt warmth surround her. He finished his prayer, and Kathy hesitated. She felt so vulnerable, so close to tears.

“Please also pray for me, for healing in my life too, and for my kids,” she said. After the prayer, she leaned against the wall and cried.

The next day, after work, Kathy went up to the hospital to see her father.

“You look great,” Kathy said.

Bob tapped his knuckles on the hard plastic clam shell. “You won’t believe what happened to me last night.”

“What?”

“Well, it was around 10:30, and the bed felt like a hard board, and I hurt. The morphine didn’t even touch it.” He smiled. “Suddenly, I felt warmth surround me, and it entered my spine and went through me. I felt peace, and my whole body relaxed and the pain left. I looked at the ‘Footprints’ poster, and my thoughts went beyond me and into the endless expanse of the universe. And the words ‘where you see only one set of footprints, it is there that I carried you’…” His voice trailed off. “One more day,” he said. “I made it another day. God gave me another day. I’m going to make it.”

“Me too,” Kathy said.

Bob winked at his daughter and nodded.

Bob was in the hospital for only two weeks. Shortly before his release, the prayer team came into the room and circled him as they prayed. After several minutes, Bob felt warmth engulf him, and this time it settled into his chest and ribs. His body relaxed, and the pain left.

Discharged from the hospital, Bob arrived at home, and using a walker made his way up a ramp that Carol had built for him at the front door. She had painted it white and put traction strips on it. Bob paused halfway up. He bumped the walker on it a few times. “Yep, good and solid.” He smiled at Carol.

That Easter morning, just twenty-five days after the accident, Kathy carried the good dishes to the table for their traditional Easter breakfast. The dishes were used for holidays and special occasions, and they were special because of the story behind them: Bob and Agnes enjoyed antique auctions, and at the end of the bidding at one auction, Agnes commented on what a great deal someone had gotten on a set of china. Then the auctioneer called her number. Surprised, she looked at Bob, who knew she liked them and had been standing behind her, bidding. Agnes loved to recount the story and erupt into laughter.

In the kitchen, Agnes flipped the bacon and called out, “Almost ready.”

Bob’s hospital bed had been set up in the living room. He used the handrail to sit up. The cuts on his forehead had faded into scars, and the gentle creases and lines from his sixty-six years softly followed the contours on his face. He placed his hands on his walker’s handles and stood to his feet. He grinned, then picked up the walker and carried it to the table.

“I’ve been thinking,” he said, as Kathy put some silverware beside the last plate and Rob came in with the orange juice.

“On the day of the accident, Joe called Rob at the right time. And when Rob went down the driveway, the house was between him and me, over five hundred feet away, and in the rain.” He turned to Rob. “How did you see me through the house?”

“I don’t know. It’s like I just knew.”

Agnes put the plate of bacon on the table, and they all sat down to pray before the meal. After the prayer, Bob lifted a glass of orange juice to declare a toast.

The family lifted their glasses.

“To this memory,” Bob said, “and to all the moments like it that make life great and worth living. Everything God has blessed me with—an unselfish and kind-hearted wife, loving children and grandchildren—has been beyond my wildest dreams.”

They all raised their glasses and took a sip.

Rob passed the salt to Christy. He glanced at his Grandpa and smiled.

Kathy looked around and felt the power of God in the simple morning. The dog’s toenails clicked across the linoleum as she came through the kitchen and settled down near the table. Dishes passed and clanked, and the conversation drifted from politics and the economy to memories and on to stories about when Dad had driven a tank in the army and his views of war.

Outside, the sunrise cast light on the new spring greens. They had one more day, and that was enough to celebrate a moment in life.

PHOTOGRAPHS

Tracks on the lane where the tractor had slid to the side before hitting the rock. The hay bale is dark, but sitting just behind the tractor

Broken branches from the path of the hay bale when it catapulted over Bob before crushing him.

The forks, broken loose from the front, and twisted

The hay bale bent the steering wheel

The impact broke the seat beneath Bob

On the lane, facing the barn

Bob at the hospital, recovering. His chest is still darkly bruised.

Bob and his daughter Kathy

Bob and his wife Agnes.

Bob and his grandson Robert next to the hay bale.

Bob and his daughter Carol working on props for the PAX Television re-enactment of the accident for the It’s a Miracle series hosted by Richard Thomas.

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Bob and his granddaughter Christy

Dennis (far left) helps during re-enactment of the accident and filming for the It's a Miracle series on PAX Television.

Bob talks with director Chip Clemons during the filming for It's a Miracle.

Bob and his daughter's black mare. The large dark shadow behind Bob is where his grandson Rob found him on the day of the accident.

Do You Need Healing?

God’s healing is for all of us, whether it be on an icy farm lane or in the valley of depression. Whether it be a whispered cry for help from a broken body, or from a broken life.

God gave Bob Peterson his miracle in a series of steps, and many times, it is how he works in our lives. He transforms us from being wounded and broken into a renewed and healed person. But we must choose to move forward, to continue, even if only a few inches at a time.

We are also taking steps each time we choose love over anger or choose kindness over meanness. Every time we make a decision that takes us one step closer to the character of God, we are walking a straighter road toward the greatest miracle of all, a changed heart and a new life.

The first step is to accept Jesus. The bible says, “ ... Whosoever shall call on the name of the Lord shall be saved” (Acts 2:21);  It’s simple. Pray and ask Jesus to come into your heart and be the Lord over your life.

Then someday you’ll look back and be amazed by what you’ve come through. One day you will look back and see how the little steps changed your life.

Bob wrote this prayer of thanks. The background image is from a photo taken in Sundsvall, Sweden, where Bob has family

A free download of Bob’s Prayer of Thanks to God is at:

www.phelpsllc.com/bobpeterson.html

K. Robert (Bob) Peterson grew up during the Depression and committed his life to Jesus at the age of thirteen while attending Bible camp in the woods of Upper Peninsula, Michigan, where he lived at the time. He carried this life-changing experience throughout his life, and in times of struggle, he would ask himself, “What would Jesus do?”

Bob found comfort in his relationship with the Lord, and after surviving the accident, he volunteered to tell his story wherever he was asked to go. From small senior citizen meetings in town hall basements to audiences of thousands to a single person standing behind him in line at the grocery store, Bob made it his mission to ask, “Do you believe in miracles? Let me tell you what happened to me.” Bob’s story also aired on PAX Television’s It’s a Miracle series, hosted by Richard Thomas.

Bob worked as an engineer, college professor, and devoted conservationist. In 2007, he received the Mason Tree Commission Arbor Day Award and was recognized for his research and development of ways to use wood products and for his efforts in recycling waste trees. His research and significant contributions to the animal bedding, landscaping, and waste tree management industry is internationally recognized.

In spite of the many obstacles and challenges he faced, Bob always remained thankful, generous, and kind.

K. Robert (Bob) Peterson: 1931-2007

Healing Verses:

When I am pressed on every side by troubles, I am not crushed and broken. When I am perplexed because I don’t know why things happen as they do, I don’t give up and quit.

--2 Corinthians 4:8 (TLB)

I am strong and of good courage, I do not fear nor am I afraid, for the Lord my God, he is the one who goes with me. He will not leave me nor forsake me.

--Deuteronomy 31:6 (NKJV)

As I wait on the Lord, with good courage, he will strengthen my heart.

--Psalm 24:14 (NKJV)

The eyes of the Lord are on me, and His ears are open to my cry . . . . When I cry out, the Lord hears me, and delivers me out of all my troubles.

--Psalm 34:15, 17 (NKJV)

You, O Lord, are a shield for me, my glory, and the lifter of my head.

--Psalm 3:3

God comforts, encourages and consoles me in every trouble. He enables me to console others who need comfort.

--2 Corinthians 1:4

I rejoice and exult in hope; I’m steadfast and patient in suffering and tribulation; constant in prayer.

--Romans 12:12

The mountains shall depart, and the hills be removed; but God’s kindness shall not depart from me, neither shall the covenant  of His peace be removed, saith the Lord that hath mercy on me.

--Isaiah 54:10 (KJV)

I am more than a conqueror through Christ Who loves me.

--Romans 8:37

I approach the throne of grace with confidence, so that I may receive mercy and find grace to help me in my time of need.

--Hebrews 4:16 (NIV)

In quietness and in trusting confidence I find strength.

--Isaiah 30:15

He gives power to the faint and weary, and to him who has no might He increases strength (causing it to multiply and making it to abound).

-- Isaiah 40:29

Medical Documentation

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Kathryn (Bennett) Mann

Kathy is a horse behaviorist who has written books and articles on horsemanship and delivered lectures at horse-related events, including the Michigan Horse Expo, Michigan 4-H Leaders Conference, school classrooms, and others. Her award-winning articles have appeared in Western Horseman, Rails and Trails, Equine Times, Rocky Mountain Rider, and more. Her script, Chain Reaction (Crushed), appeared on PAX Television’s It’s a Miracle series, hosted by Richard Thomas (1998).

Kathy has had a lifelong passion for and experience in the horse industry and currently stands the stallion Royale King Leo Bars at her farm in Mason, Michigan.

Table of Contents

Copyright

THE ACCIDENT

PHOTOGRAPHS

Do You Need Healing?

Healing Verses:

Medical Documentation

ABOUT THE AUTHOR