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Farm Boy Proves to be Little Lifesaver
Angela Hall
Leader-Post
July 14, 2005
BIG BEAVER -- An eight-year-old boy who watched his father get pinned beneath a piece of heavy farm equipment climbed behind the wheel of the family pickup truck and drove several kilometres for help.
Family and neighbours are hailing James Amell and his little sister Neely as heroes for their part in rescuing their dad, Don Amell, a 39-year-old farmer.
Neely, 7, comforted her dad while James navigated the hilly rural roads for more than an hour in search of a neighbour over the noon hour on July 6.
Don had taken his kids to an unoccupied farmyard about 10 kilometres east of Big Beaver, a tiny Saskatchewan village near the U.S. border, to retrieve a combine header, the apparatus at the front of the combine that cuts the crop. The 24-foot-long (or seven-metre-long) piece of equipment was on a trailer that had a flat tire, and Don wanted to take it back to their farm southwest of Big Beaver to have it ready to use at harvest.
"I tried pumping (the tire) up first but it wouldn't hold any air, so then I got a jack and I blocked everything up," recalled Don, back at home after six days in a Regina hospital. When Don removed the tire, the blocks, which were on ground softened by recent rains, gave way under the enormous weight of the header.
"When I looked up, the whole thing was coming down on me, on my left leg, and just pinned me there."
James and Neely, who had been waiting in the safety of the truck, began screaming and ran to their dad.
"The two little jiggers, they're trying to lift the weight off me saying 'Pull your leg out, Dad, pull your leg out.'
"There's nobody around for a good four, five miles. I said to my boy: 'James, you're just going to have to take the truck and find somebody.'"
The eight-year-old perched himself on the edge of the seat of the Dodge Ram 2500 in order to reach the pedals. He set out on an eight-kilometre drive to a neighbour's place, only to find nobody home.
James turned the truck around and headed back to his dad, who, lying in pain in the blistering sun, gave him directions to another neighbour, Boyd and Emily Sjogren's, about five kilometres away.
The whole experience was "scary," said James on Wednesday. "I just kept on going."
At one point, the back wheel of the truck went into the ditch. "I had to put it in four-wheel drive. I'd seen my mom and dad use it," said James, who'll enter Grade 4 in the fall. "There was mud flying everywhere."
James found the Sjogren's at home and calmly asked for help, leading the couple back to his father where Boyd jacked up the header to relieve the pressure on Don.
"We have no cell coverage down there so I had to drive back home to phone 9-1-1 and give them directions," Emily Sjogren said Wednesday. "Then I went back and stayed with Don while my husband went up to the highway and waited for the ambulance to direct them down to the site."
Don, who spent about an hour-and-a-half pinned to the ground, was taken to hospital in Bengough and on to Regina. His left femur was broken and he had a rod put in his leg from his pelvis to his knee. Parts on the header also punctured his leg.
http://www.canada.com/regina/leaderpost/news/story.html?id=9ab3e53c-0c08-4f39-9c71-6f088faff874
Angela Hall
Leader-Post
July 14, 2005
BIG BEAVER -- An eight-year-old boy who watched his father get pinned beneath a piece of heavy farm equipment climbed behind the wheel of the family pickup truck and drove several kilometres for help.
Family and neighbours are hailing James Amell and his little sister Neely as heroes for their part in rescuing their dad, Don Amell, a 39-year-old farmer.
Neely, 7, comforted her dad while James navigated the hilly rural roads for more than an hour in search of a neighbour over the noon hour on July 6.
Don had taken his kids to an unoccupied farmyard about 10 kilometres east of Big Beaver, a tiny Saskatchewan village near the U.S. border, to retrieve a combine header, the apparatus at the front of the combine that cuts the crop. The 24-foot-long (or seven-metre-long) piece of equipment was on a trailer that had a flat tire, and Don wanted to take it back to their farm southwest of Big Beaver to have it ready to use at harvest.
"I tried pumping (the tire) up first but it wouldn't hold any air, so then I got a jack and I blocked everything up," recalled Don, back at home after six days in a Regina hospital. When Don removed the tire, the blocks, which were on ground softened by recent rains, gave way under the enormous weight of the header.
"When I looked up, the whole thing was coming down on me, on my left leg, and just pinned me there."
James and Neely, who had been waiting in the safety of the truck, began screaming and ran to their dad.
"The two little jiggers, they're trying to lift the weight off me saying 'Pull your leg out, Dad, pull your leg out.'
"There's nobody around for a good four, five miles. I said to my boy: 'James, you're just going to have to take the truck and find somebody.'"
The eight-year-old perched himself on the edge of the seat of the Dodge Ram 2500 in order to reach the pedals. He set out on an eight-kilometre drive to a neighbour's place, only to find nobody home.
James turned the truck around and headed back to his dad, who, lying in pain in the blistering sun, gave him directions to another neighbour, Boyd and Emily Sjogren's, about five kilometres away.
The whole experience was "scary," said James on Wednesday. "I just kept on going."
At one point, the back wheel of the truck went into the ditch. "I had to put it in four-wheel drive. I'd seen my mom and dad use it," said James, who'll enter Grade 4 in the fall. "There was mud flying everywhere."
James found the Sjogren's at home and calmly asked for help, leading the couple back to his father where Boyd jacked up the header to relieve the pressure on Don.
"We have no cell coverage down there so I had to drive back home to phone 9-1-1 and give them directions," Emily Sjogren said Wednesday. "Then I went back and stayed with Don while my husband went up to the highway and waited for the ambulance to direct them down to the site."
Don, who spent about an hour-and-a-half pinned to the ground, was taken to hospital in Bengough and on to Regina. His left femur was broken and he had a rod put in his leg from his pelvis to his knee. Parts on the header also punctured his leg.
http://www.canada.com/regina/leaderpost/news/story.html?id=9ab3e53c-0c08-4f39-9c71-6f088faff874