A Dying Man's Name

I was only a few weeks past kidney surgery, but just had to get back to work as soon as possible. So five weeks after surgery, I was back at my desk. A week later, I had a doctor's appointment in Odon.

On my way back to work from the doctor, I saw something up ahead that took a couple of seconds for my brain to digest. In the southbound lane I saw a large round bale of hay bouncing down the highway towards me. At the same time I saw a farmer on a small open tractor headed down a deep ravine at a 45-degree angle. Then I saw the car come into my lane, swerving around the bale of hay.

The woman driving it sped by me, just making it back into her lane before hitting me headfirst. Just at that moment, I knew what had happened. I don't remember if the car was dented, or if it was just a coincidence that my brain spit out an answer as she barreled by me. She had hit the tractor from behind, and the old farmer got sent into the ravine. I drove a few hundred more feet and stopped on the side of the road to help. I was the second person there--a man was already down there with the farmer. He yelled at me to call an ambulance.

Nineteen years ago, nobody had cell phones. I ran to the nearest house and pounded on the door. Luckily, someone finally answered. I had to try very hard to control my hysteria as I told him to call an ambulance--that there had been a bad accident. Then I took off running again. I knew I shouldn't be running because of my recent surgery, but that was just a passing concern. As I approached the old farmer and the other driver that stopped to help, I knew it was really bad.

The farmer had the "death rattles". I've seen enough pets do this when they had been hit by a car, and I knew it wasn't good. I knelt on the ground by his head. He had beautiful blue eyes--just like my dad's. But they were open, staring at nothing, and full of dirt. He had dirt in his mouth too and was slightly bleeding from his mouth. I started to take off my coat to cover up the farmer, but the other man told me to keep it on. He knew it wasn't going to help.

I wasn't trained in first aid, but I did feel for a pulse in his wrist. There wasn't one. So I felt the jugular vein in his neck. His pulse was there, but very weak; and each time I checked it, it was more faint. All I could do was hold his hand. I wish then I had taken a CPR course.

After a few more minutes, the man who stopped said something about "she's really upset". Then he pointed. I looked in that direction and then I saw the white car that had hit the old man. She had driven the car into the next driveway, which was quite a bit from us--at least 500 feet. It looked as if she was trying to drive to where the old man was laying, but stopped just after getting out of the driveway. She had gotten out of the car and was laying on the ground; and was screaming, "I'm sorry...I'm sorry" over and over.

I had been so intent on the farmer that I had completely blocked out the screaming until now. There was an older couple with her, who I found out later were her grandparents. They had been in a car behind her. It was everything I could do to keep from running over there and giving her a few swift kicks. She wasn't hurt--just upset--and evidently too stupid to realize if you see a large bale of hay going down the highway, you better expect a tractor to be in front of it.

After a few minutes, this old couple joined us. The old woman had an afghan with her, and she kept saying "Chuck! Chuck!". I asked her if she knew him, and she said she did--that he was their neighbor. I asked her what his full name was, and she told me. If I was going to be with this man as he died, for some reason it was important to me that I knew his name. She gave us the afghan and we covered him up.

I continued holding his hand and taking his pulse, but could tell everything was slowing down, including the death rattles. After about 15 minutes, the ambulance arrived. I remember one of the EMTs taking one look at the farmer and making this funny moaning sound. That sound told me the EMT knew there was no hope. They loaded him onto a stretcher and started to climb the ravine with him.

I was handed an equipment case that belonged to one of the EMTs, and tried to get up the grassy side of the ravine. It was a little slick due to some light snow and I wasn't sure if I was going to make it or not. But then I saw two hands reach out, take the case and help me up. It was a truck driver who had stopped to see if he could help.

I got back in my car and cried all the way to work. I worried about the old man for the rest of the day; so when I got home from work, I called the sheriff's department and told them I was a witness to the wreck. They told me the old man died of internal injuries, but they took my name and phone number in case they needed it.

I went to the showing two days later. The old farmer was wearing a brand new pair of denim bib overalls and the casket had a sheath of wheat embroidered on the lining. I thought that was very fitting. A man like that wouldn't want to be put to rest wearing a new suit--he'd want to wear something he'd been comfortable wearing all of his life. I was hoping to meet his wife, but she had left for a few minutes. I spoke to his nephew and told him I had witnessed the accident and was there while his uncle was dying.

Later on, his widow found out about me through people at work since she worked on the same base I do. She called me and we talked. I told her I wanted her to know that her husband was with people that cared about him and that he didn't feel a thing.

A few months later, a lawyer called me. The woman that had hit the old farmer was suing his widow because the tractor didn't have a slow-moving vehicle sign on it! The lawyer was "Chuck's" widow's lawyer. I told him the story, and offered to testify any time they wanted me to. I was more than ready to tell a jury how stupidly this woman was driving. I had been that direction many times since then, and had counted down the seconds she had to react if she'd been traveling the speed limit. 17 seconds is way longer than she needed to slow down when she saw that large bale of hay.

I was never called to testify, even though the widow was sued twice by this woman. The driver lost her lawsuit both times. Why she thought she should sue is still not comprehensible. She wasn't hurt, and her car had very minimal damage.

A year later, I would again see very similar beautiful blue eyes "staring at nothing"...and I was taken back to the day when I saw another pair of beautiful blue eyes belonging to a dying farmer. Only this time, the sky-blue eyes belonged to my dad as he lay dying of cancer.

Maybe God was trying to tell me something a year earlier.