Editor’s note: This is part two of a three-part series on a grain bin fall, a miraculous recovery and advice from a Firth, Neb., farmer who fell 40 feet and lived to tell the tale. Read the first part here.

Surgeries and more surgeries. That was the fate of Firth, Neb., farmer, Rodney TeKolste after falling 40 feet from the top of his 18,000-bushel grain bin in November 2019. This miracle man survived the fall and numerous surgeries to repair his pelvis, legs and back.

“The doctors told us that farmers always have better upper-body strength after harvest season, so that worked to Rodney’s advantage,” says his wife, Mary Jean. Landing on his feet from the fall destroyed his lower body and nearly caused him to bleed to death, but his head was not injured, and that probably saved his life.

After his time at the trauma center and numerous surgeries to save his life and repair damage, by Dec. 3, Rodney was moved to Madonna Rehabilitation Hospital in Lincoln, on the long road to recovery. On Dec. 18, he had surgery to repair his broken leg. By Christmas Eve, he was in a wheelchair, but he was able to go home. A ramp was built so he could access the house. A board was devised like a ramp so he could slide from the wheelchair into another chair or the shower.

Related:A grain bin fall and the miracle man

“He was strong on the top of his body,” Mary Jean says, “so if he could slide on the board, he could come home, and I would care for him.” Because of the outbreak of COVID-19 in the early months of 2020, Rodney was advised to stay home. This meant that he couldn’t go back to Madonna for rehab, and the therapist would have to come to him.

Long road

Melissa, his physical therapist, was a lifesaver, Rodney and Mary Jean say. “She came to our house twice a week to work with me during the COVID outbreak,” Rodney says. “And she still checks in on me now. She would tell me to lift up my leg, and I just couldn’t get it moving.” Rodney went back into surgery again May 26 to repair shattered bones in his foot. It took time to learn how to move his legs again and regain his strength and mobility.

Mentally, too, the fall had taken a toll. “They would ask me to draw the hands on a clock, and I couldn’t do it,” Rodney says. “My son came in and told me, ‘Dad, we have to help you figure this out.’ A priest and a pastor did double duty during this time, talking with Rodney and praying with him. The shock to his system and the medications he had to take during recovery meant that, mentally, he had to relearn and reprogram his brain and his body together to get it all working again.

Back at the farm, Taylor took over planting that spring. “He hadn’t done much planting before,” Rodney says. “We had just hired a new manager for our chicken operation, so he and Taylor planted the crops that spring. God was good to us and took care of us [through that time].”

DYNAMIC DUO: Rodney and his family admit that he couldn’t have made the recovery without his best support team member, his wife Mary Jean, at his side.

Brooke Loutzenhiser says that her parents are a different breed in that they’re very tough. She credits that toughness of character with her father’s recovery. “My mom is a saint,” she says. “She took care of dad day in and day out at home. I remember my dad trying to get out on the tractor before he should’ve been when he was still wheelchair bound. He had my mom help hoist him up in the cab just so he could get back to doing what he loves.

“I know with all of his hardware he has now, he is in chronic pain, but you’ll never hear him complain. He is just grateful to be alive and walking and doing what he loves.”

Another scare

Two years after the accident, Rodney and the family were busy with harvest. He was recovered from the accident and farming again. “That same bin that I had fallen from was full,” Rodney recalls. “I needed to move the auger, so I thought to myself, ‘I had better get up there and check it.’ I started up that same ladder on the same bin, and I got 4 feet up and a wrung broke on the ladder.”

Fortunately, since the accident, the family had installed a safety cage around the ladder, so Rodney grabbed onto the cage and lowered himself back down to the ground. “I guess I just wasn’t supposed to climb that bin,” he says.

After his full recovery, Rodney and Mary Jean remain grateful. They know that their deep faith in God — and the “angels” in their family and among the medical team that saved Rodney, as well as the therapy team that brought about his recovery — were what pulled him through this ordeal.

GRATEFUL: Rodney TeKolste (left) rides in the tractor with his son Taylor and grandson Teddy, exhibiting all smiles these days. After his horrific fall from a grain bin, he and his family are just happy that he is alive. (Brooke Loutzenhiser)

“We had so many people praying for us,” Mary Jean says.

Perhaps their daughter summed it up best. “I have never in all of my life met someone who worked so hard to get better, pushed himself every day to be able to walk, was always grateful for his medical staff and never once complained,” Loutzenhiser says.

Be sure to catch part three, the last installment in this three-part series, Wednesday at nebraskafarmer.com to learn some advice the family has for those who are climbing grain bins this harvest season.