About the middle of June 1953, I was cultivating beans with my tractor when a thunderstorm started to come up. I went to the house and ran the tractor into the tool shed. It was raining very hard and the thunder and lighting was very severe. I did not have a shirt on. I ran to the house between thunders, where my mother was setting on a covered porch. We talked about the storm and I said I have some things to do on my car, I’m going to put it in the garage, which was directly across the driveway from the house, and work on it.
After the next thunder, I ran to my car and drove it partway into the garage, about to the windshield. I got out and ran around to the passenger side of the car. I walked up to the front fender of the car. There was a large grinder setting a few inches from the fender. I bent down between the grinder and the fender to pickup a block of wood on the floor. Suddenly there was a large bang of thunder and a huge crash of lighting.
My mother came from the house just screaming are you OK? She said when it thundered a large ball of fire came down on the back of the car. I stood up and told her I guess I’m OK. We talked for a few minutes and my back and chest started to tighten up. She said we better go to the hospital.
By the time we got to the hospital, about six miles, my chest was tightening up and it was getting difficult to breath. From emergency they took me directly to radiology for x-rays, then back to emergency. I found I had to breath with my stomach my chest was getting very sore. The doctor came in and sat down. She asked what happened? Mother explained about the ball of fire coming down on the car. I told her how I was bent down between the fender and the grinder. I told her I was wet and the car was wet also. The lightning apparently struck the car and went thru me under my left armpit and out my right armpit, and probably passed thru my heart. Because I was so wet, the lightning went right through me. The doctor said I was very lucky, if I had been a few inches away from the car, we would not be there talking.
For the next couple of weeks all I could do was sit in the rocking chair and take pain pills. It was very hard to breathe using my lungs, and to use my stomach to breath. Father was getting behind with the farm work. One day I told him if he would fill the Allis Chalmers tractor, the one with the cultivator on it – with gas, maybe I could sit on the cushion seat and drive and cultivate. I found sitting on the cushion was very relaxing and since the corn and beans were small and I needed to go very slow, it was very relaxing indeed. I practically lived on that tractor after that. After a couple of weeks, the pain subsided and went away. I can still predict the weather as good as the weather bureau some times.
In September 2008 I went to Ingham Medical Osteopathic Hospital to have a total right shoulder replaced. The Osteopathic Doctor called it a reverse procedure, developed over in France about 5 years earlier, they replace the total ball and socket. It is a new procedure here in the States. During surgery, my heart started to fail. A cardio physician was called over from the Cardiology unit of the hospital. My shoulder surgery was completed. They called for an ambulance to come and take me over to the cardio hospital. A nurse came and told my wife where to go at the heart unit. I was put on a machine for my heart, and in a medical induced coma, until they could find out what was happening with my heart. I was kept in this coma for over 2 ½ weeks. My wife and family members traveled 2 hours every day to see me. The doctor that did my shoulder said he came over every day and she was always there. Mary told me several different times 5 or 6 doctors would come in and look at my chart and check my condition. A nurse came in and told Mary that Medicare was going to stop my hospital coverage. They were making out paperwork to send me to an extended care facility, near our home. Mary said the six doctors came in to check on me. They started talking together and were getting somewhat concerned. Mary said the head surgeon came over to her and said we are going into surgery immediately, my heart was failing and we are going to loose him. She started calling my family and telling them, so they could come. A nurse came and took Mary to the surgery waiting room and stayed until some of our family got there. My blood oxygen had dropped to less than 50 when they took the oxygen away from me.
The surgeon came in after the surgery and said they found a hole between the right ventricular and the left ventricular in my heart, and was allowing the good blood and the bad blood to flow back and forth. It appeared to have enlarged some and was causing the trouble.
When we went back to his office for a visit I told him about the lightening strike 55 years earlier, and the lightening going threw my heart. He said he had fixed the hole shut and I should have no more trouble
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