To watch your child almost die is an experience I hope no parent will ever have to witness. I am in shock tonight as I am haunted by the images of my son, almost 2 years old, falling from a moving John Deere tractor into the attached bushhog. I cannot believe that it happened. It is a parent's worst nightmare to even think about losing a child. I was taking pictures of the kids with my dad as they were in his new tractor last night at my grandparent's house in Danville. I think it all happened around 6ish in the evening.
Tristan was holding on tight to papaw's arm and Sam was waving to me and hollering, "Hi, mommy." I heard my mom tell Jeremy (whom had just pulled up into the driveway) that those kids should not be on that tractor. Well, about that time, I thought to myself, no they should not be! Well, I started towards the tractor and just as I snapped the last shot with my camera, I saw my baby fall head first into the bush hog from around 6 feet or so in the air. I flung the camera off of me and began screaming and sprinting towards them in the field. I was about 30 or 40 yards away. I kept screaming and begging for my dad to stop the blades of the bush hog and to stop the tractor. He was doing his best to do that. But, it seemed like he wasn't hearing me because the tractor was not stopping. Samuel, in his wonderful instinctive way, was holding on and grasping at every piece of metal down the way to the ground. His angel must have been showing him where to grab. As the tractor jerked to a stop, and I was gaining yardage closer, I felt my sense of closeness with my son slipping. I was ballistic at this point, I was frantic and screaming and I sounded like a wounded animal, that is what I remember.
Samuel, was caught under the drive shaft between the hitch and the tractor and he was reaching and screaming out for me. He was watching me to see how he should react. I wish I could say that I was calm and strong for him, but I wasn't, I couldn't be. I wanted him. I wanted to hold him and know that he was safe. I finally caught up with the tractor and knew that Tristan was safe and unjammed Sammy's hands from the shaft and grabbed him with every bit of Adrenaline inside of me and I ran. That was the only instinct I could go with at that moment, run.
I ran so quick and my feet were like floating on air. I ran so hard and so fast that my adrenaline gave way to me. Someone was trying to take him away from my arms and I jerked and tripped on an old tree root as I was coming out of the ditch and fell, hard. That was the hardest fall I have ever had in my life. Sammy, craddled in my arms, fell with me and began screaming my name over and over. I think it was then that he received his first scratches of the whole event. Dazed, confused, erratic, and discombobulated, I was jerked to my feet only to fall back down to my knees as Jeremy grabbed Samuel from my arms and began to sprint to the house with him. I crawled back up the ditch, knowing at that time I had broken something in my foot and feeling a sting in my right shin, but not caring because all I wanted to know was that Samuel was alive and okay. My mom was urging me to calm down and Tristan followed in suite telling me it was okay and to just be calm.
Amazingly, Samuel was unharmed. The only place on his body that was injured was on his back, just a few light scrapes and that was from when I fell with him. I was still screaming, "Oh, God. Oh, God, thank you" over and over until I was so hoarse. My parents were trying to calm me down and I just couldn't do it. I began worshipping God and praising him and shouting his name as loud as I could until I found out that he was okay and then even after I knew. Once I knew he was allright, I fainted in their driveway out of my dad's arms. I awoke to find my dad slapping me and weeping with me.
Samuel was screaming for his mommy. I was screaming to hold him. I took him into the bath tub, the tub I used to love to take baths in as a child when I would visit my grandparents, and I bathed him and cried and washed my own wounds. By that time, my injuries on my shin and elbow were swollen to about two inches off of the regular plane of the skin. My shin looked like someone had taken an air pump and inflated it under the skin. It was about the size of salad plate in diameter. I continued to thank God and was just so shocked at what had just transpired. I was really bad off, I was injured and Sam was not, praise God for that. If someone had to of gotten hurt, thank you God it was me. I washed him over and over and the water was dirty and bloody. But, he was unharmed and I was badly shaken. He kept looking to me as to how he should react and he kept saying over and over and over the word, "tracker" I was so overcome with grief, stupidity, and joy. I was in shock. My body was shaking uncontrollably and my baby was okay.
Tristan brought me my camera, my nice, new, pride and joy camera that I love. It was in several pieces, a small price to pay for the life of my child. I have pictures of the event. It might make you sick to see the whir of the last shot I took before I threw the camera across the field as I dashed to "save" my son (it does me).
We went to the hospital. My grandmother thought that I was going to have a heart attack. My blood pressure at the hosptial was 166 over 99. I thought my dad was going to have one. He left the scene as soon as he knew we were all okay. He was sick. He would never hurt one of his grandchildren and he was sick at the thought of having almost done so. I suspect that he and I will share the same nightmares for a while. The images that almost were, but thanks to God, never happened.
I have a broken pinky toe, the same one I broke in November. It is actually broken on what is considered the foot. I am really scraped up on my leg, hand, and elbow. But, I have my sons. I have the security that they are allright and that God is so, so, so, good. I am blessed and I will praise His name forever for what he has given me.
My Dad called me two days after this happened and told me that Samuel had this "blur" or "glow around him when he turned around and saw him falling. My dad said that he knew that he was protected. God is still turning water into wine in our times too...After you read this, please say a prayer of thanks for the miracle that God granted us with last night. Life is like a whir of images and thoughts. My heart is on eggshells tonight as I mourn the feelings I had of doubt and the unknown. God's Grace and Hope and Faith are what I know.
