04/03/2026
This is copied from The Back Forty, Will Westmorland’s page. It’s too good not to share on this day.
Let me begin by saying that I know not all of my followers are religious or spiritual people. Hopefully, you have followed me long enough to know that hold a deep respect for all viewpoints on the topic of religion and faith. For me, telling the following story is not only cathartic but it is a way for me to share the experience that had the greatest impact on my life and began my faith journey. It was 46 years ago today. I hope you walk away with some lesson about faith, endurance, or just hope. Thanks everyone!
40 years ago today at this exact time I was in an operating room at Cox North. I was 12 years old. Earlier that day my grandfather and I had been digging post holes with an International tractor and an old post hole digger with no safety equipment. I’m not sure how many holes we dug that day. I used to know but that detail has faded in my memory. We were digging post holes for a new riding arena. My grandparents raised Arabian horses. I remember we were on the last hole. Two or three minutes away from being done for the day. Good Friday. 1980.
As the auger went down for the last time it hit a large rock under the surface and jolted sideways toward me. A bolt sticking out of the power shaft caught my glove and pulled my arm in and wrapped it around the spinning shaft. Two things happened at the same time. I screamed “Turn it off!” as soon as I felt the bolt grab my glove. And I felt several jolts travel through my body accompanied by the sound of bones breaking. If you’ve ever broken an arm or leg you know the sound I’m talking about.
I was wearing a school jacket and the shaft pulled my shirt and jacket up around my neck. It immediately began strangling me. I couldn’t breathe at all. I couldn’t make a noise. The next sound I heard was honestly the most sorrowful thing I have ever heard in my life. As my grandfather turned in the tractor seat to see why I had shouted I heard him wail “Oh dear God! Oh dear God!” He climbed down from the tractor and came to me. Thankfully, he recognized I was strangling and asked me if I could breathe. I shook my head no and he took out his pocketknife and cut away my jacket and shirt and I felt the cool Spring air filled my lungs. Papa was wailing but he went in to action and unwrapped my arm from the shaft and laid me down on the ground.
He started running to the house a couple of hundred yards away and I heard him wailing and saying “I’ve killed him. I’ve killed him!” The last words I said to him as he left were “Hurry Papa! Hurry Papa!” Then I was alone. As I lay there on the ground shirtless I reached up and felt my stomach as it had been scraped in the accident. When I pulled my hand away it was covered in blood. That’s when I turned to look at my left arm.
My thumb had been torn off and was hanging by a thread of skin. Several of my fingers were dislocated. The skin on the palm of my hand had been ripped open and I could see the muscle and tendons that were exposed. My forearm was broken in three places. All of the skin from my elbow down had been pulled down around the bottom of my arm near my wrist. I could see all of the muscles, veins and other tissue that had once been covered by skin. My elbow was broken in several places and was dislocated. All of the fatty tissue in my arm and much of the muscle had been ground up. My upper arm was broken and had been pulled apart about three to five inches where the auger had tried to tear my arm loose from my body. My shoulder was dislocated and my scapula in my shoulder was broken as well as both collar bones. The scrape on my stomach was caused by the auger starting to dig in to my stomach. One more turn and I would not be here today to tell this story.
I began to cry. At the top of my lungs I screamed up in to the blue sky. “God, please save me! I don’t want to die!” As I lay there a sense of absolute peace came over me. Just a few moments later I heard a deep voice say “W***y, I won’t let you die.” As strange as it sounds, from that moment forward, I knew I would not die. I knew I would live. My grandmother came to my side and took off her jacket and laid it over my arm because the sun was melting the fat that had been exposed in the accident.
Two men in their twenties came by and they stopped to check on us. I asked them to pray with my grandmother and I. One of them left to drive down to the end of the farm road to direct the ambulance our way. The paramedics arrived. They began cleaning my arm and they put in an inflatable splint. My mother came home from work to the scene of me on the ground near an ambulance with paramedics working on me. My grandfather was still wailing. The paramedics were worried he might have a heart attack so they called in another ambulance and they took him to the hospital with me. I was alive and God had spoken to me. Miracle # 1.
When I arrived at the emergency room I remember looking up at the covered crosswalk above me at all of the people staring down at me. Everyone loves a good accident. In the emergency room the doctors and nurses began working on me. My Uncle Bob showed up and sat with me. The first plastic surgeon came in and looked at my arm. Standing right there next to me he said “It will have to be amputated.” My grandfather was brought in to the room with me. He was smiling. He was peaceful. They wheeled him over to me in a wheelchair and he looked at me and said “I heard a voice that said W***y is going to be fine! I won’t let him die!” Miracle # 2.
That’s when I heard a voice with a strange accent say “Let’s not be too hasty!” Ernst P. Danielson was born in Iceland and had grown up to become a doctor. Then a plastic surgeon. Then a plastic surgeon specializing in limb reattachment. Of all the places he could have chosen in the world to live... he chose Springfield, MO. He spent the entire night saving my arm. Miracle # 3.
I spent two months in the hospital. I cried as old skin was cut away and dead muscle was removed. I cried because I missed my dog Cowboy. I cried because I missed my friends. I developed a stress ulcer after a month and half in the hospital. I lost twenty pounds. I cried and writhed in a pool of sweat for five days after not eating for seven days. The doctors decided I needed a feeding tube and the procedure was set up for the next morning. I called Papa at 9:00 that night. I was crying and in horrible pain. I told him I was scared and, without hesitation, he told me he would come spend the night at the hospital with me. When he got there the pain had doubled and I finally just passed out.
I have no idea how much time passed. But I slowly awoke and the first thing I realized as my eyes were still closed is that my pain was gone. Not only was my pain gone but I felt a warmth in my stomach where the pain had been and it was like a warm and bright light expanding out to the rest of my body. I opened my eyes and Papa had his hands on my stomach and his eyes were closed in prayer. I smiled and said “It doesn’t hurt any more!” I ate a hamburger that night and drank a chocolate milkshake. The feeding tube was cancelled and my stress ulcer was gone. Miracle # 4. A month after I got home that summer, and played with my dog Cowboy, I walked down the isle at Brighton Methodist Church and accepted Christ as my savior as Irene Dickinson played the old piano in the corner. I was baptized a week later by Jim Whitman.
40 years have passed. I’ve had 12 surgeries as a result of that farm accident. But I lived. I played high school football. I got married. I had four incredible children. I have a beautiful grandchild. That is my witness. God has always been faithful to me and I have tried my best to be faithful to him. I wouldn’t change anything. I was fortunate in that I experienced a closeness to God that I have been able to carry with me my entire life. He has never failed to carry me through difficult times. He has never failed to provide me hope.
If you are seeking a friend who won’t ever let you down. If you are seeking a source of hope and strength. If you need a shoulder to cry on or a shelter in a storm you can’t go wrong with God. Not the TV god. Not the fundraiser god. Not the snake oil god. But the God that stood on a mount in front of hundreds and said...
“Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.” — in Brighton, MO.
