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ghosttruck

Level 57 Taco Wizard
full


A man who farms near Pender, Nebraska, went to extraordinary lengths to save his life after his left leg became trapped in a machine on his farm.

In the early afternoon of April 19, Kurt Kaser, a lifelong corn, soybean and hog farmer, was transferring grain from one bin to another when he stepped into a grain auger. The machine ate away at his left leg and sucked the 63-year-old toward the machine.

“I didn’t know what to do,” he said Tuesday. “I was afraid it was going to suck me in more. I about gave up and let it do what it was going to do.”

Kaser was alone on the farm that day. His cellphone either fell into the machine or fell out someplace else. On the 1,500-acre farm, yelling would do no good.

So he pulled out his 3-inch pocket knife and hacked away at his leg.

“I have had other incidences. I try to hold my cool or figure out how to make the situation better at the time,” he said. “It’s hard to describe. You want to survive and you do what you need to do to survive, I guess.”

Kaser saw the machine remove his foot from his body and tear away at his flesh. About 8 inches below his knee, he found the smallest connection of tissue and determined it was his best chance to free himself.

He sawed away at muscles and nerves, cutting through a half-inch to an inch before he came free.

“The bone stuck out down to my ankle,” he said. “That’s what I was hanging onto as I was trying to get myself out.”

Once free, Kaser crawled about 200 feet to the nearest phone. He called his son, who is on the local rescue squad.

Kaser’s son, Adam, was the first person to arrive at the farm. He helped take his father to town. Kaser then was flown to Bryan Medical Center’s west campus in Lincoln, where one of Kaser’s two daughters is a trauma nurse. She wasn't working that day.

Kaser spent a week in the hospital and two weeks at Madonna Rehabilitation Hospital in Lincoln. He returned home Friday.

“Everybody says, ‘You seem so upbeat about it,’” he said. “I’ve been in Madonna for two weeks. Some (other patients) won’t ever get out of their wheelchairs. What they’ve got is what they are. I know I will be walking again fairly normally. Other people can’t, won’t ever.”

 
This is why everyone should have one top knotch always sharp quality knife.
Not playing at collecting knives.. Just one great sharp knife, and one back up knife.
Mine is a red Case Pocket-Worn trapper. And somewhere around here I have a medium Stockman from the same series.

Case will take, and keep, an edge; more, they have a pretty damn good edge to begin with.

--Al
 
@Alf Is that a recommendation or a boast?
or both?

More a recommendation for that "one good knife".

It really is astonishing how many small tasks a pocket knife will handle with aplomb and astounding how nekkid one feels when, having become accustomed to always having a sharp edge in one's pocket, one is denied for reasons of custom or safety.

--Al
 
It's a good idea to have both your phone and something like a knife with you at all times. I learned this after getting trapped in a closet in my own home, because the doorknob was faulty. After some searching I was able to find something I could pry it open with, but otherwise I would've been in there for hours until other family members returned home.
 
Nebraskans are a cut above.
Rare people indeed.

My fingers start to itch around the end of January, early February to get into the soil. I want to get in there and get my hands dirty in a direct connect with the dark earth and oh, the rich aroma that is released from the loamy soil.

Nebraskans have that kind of connection with their land and I believe it is generational. They know it. They pick it up to look at it, smell it, crumble it up and watch it as it goes through their fingers. Got to give it up to them and agree, rare people indeed.
 
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I always have a knife. I own... several, but I'm always carrying one. And I keep one in my car (with a glass breaker/seat belt cutter), and there is one in my bedside nightstand. Always good to have a sharp blade within arms' reach.
 
I always have a knife. I own... several, but I'm always carrying one. And I keep one in my car (with a glass breaker/seat belt cutter), and there is one in my bedside nightstand. Always good to have a sharp blade within arms' reach.
I do the same with guns. If I fall in an auger, I can shoot the power cable and kill it.
 
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