Farmer John Moody marked National Farm Health and Safety Week (September 15-21) by remembering the winter day when he drove his tractor to a pasture to feed the cows on his Crockett, Virginia, farm. It was the day after his 70th birthday. On the front and back of the big tractor were huge, round bales of hay, each adding about 1,500 pounds to the weight of the tractor. John tells WGN’s Steve Alexander how he parked the tractor to open the pasture gate, and “when I turned around to get on the tractor, here come the tractor!” John tried to jump on as it rumbled toward him, but “the back wheel caught my right leg and pulled me under and it ran over me.”
John was alive, but thought he was paralyzed. He couldn’t move is legs. But the gate was open and the cows were coming, so he dragged himself to the gate and pulled it shut before they could get out. And then he waited. He didn’t have a cell phone, and the country road–not heavily traveled any time of day–was especially quiet during mid-morning when neighbors had already gone to school and work. But John knew that eventually the mailman would come, and an hour or so later, Allen Dix drove up in his mail truck, just as he had day after day for the past 18 years, saw John’s tractor, but didn’t see John. Allen got out to investigate and found John lying in a ditch. “John, are you OK?” he asked. Dix says the farmer replied in a matter-of-fact manner, “No, the tractor ran over me.”
Dix did have a cell phone and dialed 9-1-1. and then dialed John’s wife, Debbie. The mailman says John was being very nonchalant, asking Debbie what she was doing, and carrying on as if he were just calling to check in. That’s when Dix took the phone back and explained what had happened and that rescue crews were on their way. While they waited, a neighbor happened by and he and Dix fixed the fence the tractor had torn down, and Dix drove the tractor back to John’s farm yard