Hold on to me, mommy! These are the words I will never forget the time I gained my consciousness. It was January 16, 2006, Martin Luther Day, about 4:00 in the afternoon. My husband left for work around 2:30 that afternoon. I was wearing my thick brown Carter coat to protect me from the cold wind. John, our son, 5 yrs old then, was playing outside. I was washing barn 4 (one of the grow-outs barn) when something went wrong to the high pressure pump. I rolled the hose and drove the tractor to the well house to fix it. Fortunately, we have a spare parts for it and so I began to fix it. I started taking the damage part off when suddenly I couldn't take the other bolt off. Luckily, our older son, Richard, came home from work and stopped by the well house and see what I was doing. He helped me take the other bolt off and replace the parts. I turned on the tractor (M4700), run the PTO (power take off) to check if the pump is still leaking. And no doubt it's still leaking! I tighten the bolts to fix the problem, got closer to the PTO and there you go... guess what happened! My coat got caught in the spinning PTO shaft and started to pin me on the other side. I saw darkness! How it happened? It was so fast and nobody knew how it happened, why it happened and what happened. I went black out! The scary thing... I saw myself stucked in between the pump and the bar of the spray rig, my coat around my neck. After seeing myself, I said "Ayoko pa mamatay" ("I don't want to die yet"). Seconds later, (I guess) I'm back!!!. I saw Richard at the well house and called him. He rushed towards me and said he will call for help. He run to our neighbor, John approached me, held my hand, and said, "Mommy, hold on to me, ok, Richard is going to call for help".
That's when I realize that I was under the pto shaft and on the other side. I feel like I'm going to past out again but I tried to hold on. Then our neighbors arrive, call 911, call my husband at work. They can't do anything because they dont want to make it worse since my head is stucked and my arm is twisted behind me. They keep on asking me, keeping me awake I guess! The first responder in our town came first and ask me questions [to make sure I am who I am..still sane! (",) ]. Then came the ambulance, fire trucks and sheriffs. I guess eveyone is there, ha! They put collar on my neck, hesitant at first but they said it's for safety precaution [as if I can do anything about it]. The usual 30 minutes drive to and from work of my husband became 10 mins. He said everyone got scared and didn't know if I will make it! I was flewn at the hospital, straight at the Emergency Room. Minutes after, I saw my husband with our neighbor who drove him at the hospital. They got there pretty fast! They did x-rays, MRI scan...almost everything! I stayed at the E.R. for a while waiting for the results. The doctor said, the spine muscle at the back of my neck was stretched, 2 brokens ribs, 3 fractured ribs, and a blistered right arm. I was taken to a room and spent the night there. My husband and our neighbor left. And I'm all alone, pressing the call button each time I need help to go at the bathroom...helpless me... I had a hard time sleeping, my whole body aches, my hair is a mess, can't fix it, hard to sneeze! The next day I went home wearing a collar, had to wear it for 2 weeks! I took each day carefully. Walk here, there, around the house, do some little things to gain my strength, and I was able to! As you see, Im the type of person who wouldn't give up just like that! With lots of courage, determination and faith, I am back to normal! I still ride the tractor, wash the barn, anything I can do at the farm. Whenever I ride the tractor, John would always tell me "be careful, mommy!", and he'd make sure that he is there to watch over me. He probably had a trauma to the accident. Couple of weeks, we read on the newspaper that there's a guy who died on the same situation I had. The only difference is, he was alone when his head got stuck in the PTO shaft and died on the spot! Everyone tells me, I am lucky!
To this day, everybody still remember the accident. Our previous Supervisor remembers it, the 911 first responders, our neighbors...even our son remembers it so well!
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