FAIRVIEW HEIGHTS, IL ( KTVI-FOX2now.com) -
Jack Wier and his wife Julie raise Alpacas on their farm in Fairview Heights. And it was there, on a spring day in 2007, that Jack experienced something astounding. Jack had been using a Bobcat to clear a some trees when he hit a large Cottonwood that hit back.
A broken limb came flying in under the roll bar, spearing jack through the belly with a piece of wood 20 feet long and six inches thick.
His leg was so swollen, he could not get into his pants pocket to reach his cell phone. But because the limb had also ripped his jeans, he was able to reach the bottom of the pocket and use the aerial to punch a hole in it so he could pull the phone out and call for help.
The challenge for the rescue team was to carefully remove Jack from the Bobcat, without removing the limb from Jack.
They cut it to three feet and flew him to St. Louis University Hospital.
Dr. Carl Freeman, also a military man with experience as a battlefield surgeon, led the team of doctors who took the tree limb out of Jack.
The first step, determine was which organs had been damaged. The jaw-dropping answer: none. Because the end of the branch was blunt, it pushed all of his organs out of the way. The limb missed jack's spine by 5/16ths of an inch, about the thickness of a pencil.
Jack has always believed in miracles. And he also believes a statue of the Virgin Mary, a family heirloom which happens to sit just a few feet from the scene of the accident, had something to do with his survival.
You might think people who have been through what they have been through would want to distance themselves from that awful day. But the Wier's choose to embrace it.
On Jack's desk, there now sits a lamp his son-in-law had made from pieces of the tree that almost killed him.
At the St. Louis Zoo, you'll find two of the Wier's alpacas are on loan, named for the surgeon's who saved Jack's life. There's Doc Andrus and Doc Freeman.
The keepsake that means the most however, is the simplest of them all. A large section of the limb left behind from the rescue,.
They keep it on their patio, a weathering reminder of how both luck and miracles saved a branch, on the Wier family tree.
The challenge for the rescue team was to carefully remove Jack from the Bobcat, without removing the limb from Jack.
They cut it to three feet and flew him to St. Louis University Hospital.
Dr. Carl Freeman, also a military man with experience as a battlefield surgeon, led the team of doctors who took the tree limb out of Jack.
The first step, determine was which organs had been damaged. The jaw-dropping answer: none. Because the end of the branch was blunt, it pushed all of his organs out of the way. The limb missed jack's spine by 5/16ths of an inch, about the thickness of a pencil.
Jack has always believed in miracles. And he also believes a statue of the Virgin Mary, a family heirloom which happens to sit just a few feet from the scene of the accident, had something to do with his survival.
You might think people who have been through what they have been through would want to distance themselves from that awful day. But the Wier's choose to embrace it.
On Jack's desk, there now sits a lamp his son-in-law had made from pieces of the tree that almost killed him.
At the St. Louis Zoo, you'll find two of the Wier's alpacas are on loan, named for the surgeon's who saved Jack's life. There's Doc Andrus and Doc Freeman.
The keepsake that means the most however, is the simplest of them all. A large section of the limb left behind from the rescue,.
They keep it on their patio, a weathering reminder of how both luck and miracles saved a branch, on the Wier family tree.
