It all happened within a second or two. One minute Firth, Neb., farmer Rodney TeKolste was climbing up the 40-foot, slippery metal ladder on his 18,000-bushel grain bin, one hand on the ladder and another clutching a coffee can so he could take a moisture sample of the recently harvested corn crop stored in the bin.

He tried to open the access door at the top of the bin to get the grain sample, but he always had trouble with that specific access door sticking. His foot slipped.

The next minute he was on the cold November ground, not recalling what had happened but understanding that he was in big trouble.

No one around

His wife, Mary Jean, had just arrived back home from Lincoln and noticed her husband’s jacket on the ground. Their son, Taylor, who farms with them, was on his honeymoon in Hawaii. Rodney called his wife, but they got cut off. She called him back and he answered.

Today, he doesn’t recall that phone call. When she ran to his aid, he didn’t want to call 911. “Just get me in the pickup,” he told her, although he doesn’t recall saying that either.

“No,” she replied to him. “I’m not going to move you. We don’t know what your injuries are.”

The local rescue squad and ambulance arrived at the scene and transported Rodney to the Bryan Trauma Center in Lincoln. Emergency medical technicians remember talking to Rodney on the ride, noting that he was moaning in horrific pain, but he doesn’t recall any of it.

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That was the chain of events post-harvest 2019 that put Rodney on a long journey of surgeries and, eventually, recovery. He still farms today with his son. He can walk. Rodney and Mary Jean’s daughter, Brooke Loutzenhiser, works in the neonatal intensive care unit at Children’s Nebraska Hospital in Omaha and has been in the medical field for 15 years.

She calls her dad a miracle man.

The first seven days after his injury are a total blur for Rodney, even today. When Farm Progress visited the family to talk about the ordeal, they walked through those minutes, hours and days of his recovery.

Mary Jean followed the ambulance to Bryan West while calling her three daughters, who all live in Omaha. 

“I got to the trauma center, and they put me in a room,” Mary Jean recalls. “Then, of course, the chaplain came to see me.” Usually, that means the injuries are life-threatening. But the chaplain helped Mary Jean through this difficult time.

“Meanwhile, our daughter Brooke had called our son on his honeymoon,” she says, “so, our son called me in a panic.” The chaplain checked to see if Mary Jean could go back to talk with her husband. The doctor told her that Rodney was fortunate because he didn’t have a head injury. That said, the injuries were extensive, and his life was still on the line.

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FIRST DAYS: TeKolste’s first days in the trauma center in Lincoln were challenging, with surgeries, loss of blood and multiple issues to deal with from the grain bin fall. With him lucky to be alive, TeKolste’s family just had to wait, pray and see how he would recover. But recover he did, thanks to family support, a particular toughness and a strong medical team working on his behalf. (Brooke Loutzenhiser)

Saving his life

Usually, grain bin accidents involve entrapment inside the bin, Rodney says. But his accident and fall were a different kind of grain bin accident that isn’t talked about much. There were 865 fatalities from slips, trips and falls in the U.S. in 2022, according to the U.S. Department of Labor. Grain bin falls were a part of that statistic.

“A fall from 40 feet almost always results in death or long-term complications,” Loutzenhiser says. “My dad landed on his feet and, according to the doctors, that is what likely saved his life. The fall severed his pelvic bone, arteries and veins and completely internally detached his leg, broke several vertebrae in his back, broke several ribs, his sternum, his leg and several bones in his foot, [along] with severe internal bleeding.

“He should have bled out as he laid on the ground after his fall. Somehow, he was able to call mom for help and get to the hospital before he lost all of his blood.”

She got a call from her mom while at work. “When my sister and I first arrived at the hospital in Lincoln, the trauma doctor handed us my dad’s boots, cellphone and the clothes they had cut off of him,” Loutzenhiser recalls. “It’s a frightening feeling to know I couldn’t just pick up the phone and call him, and this could be the last time I’d see him without his work boots on.

“The moment I walked into his room in the ICU is a feeling I will never forget. I got absolutely sick to my stomach. His blood pressure was so low that it was about half of what an adult blood pressure should be. He was so pale.

“I just sat down at his bedside on my knees and started praying he would make it through. It still brings me to tears to even think about it. But the medical staff at Bryan Trauma Center were nothing short of amazing. They saved his life, and we are forever indebted to them.”

First things first

Rodney had multiple back fractures, 2 millimeters short of paralyzing him from the waist down, Loutzenhiser says. “And now he is walking and working back on the farm," she adds.

GREAT TEAM: TeKolste’s wife, Mary Jean, has been his biggest supporter throughout the ordeal, and their family calls her a “saint.” (Brooke Loutzenhiser)

“At first, they had to actually put a girdle on him to stop the bleeding,” Mary Jean says. “The next two days were critical and very stressful. On day two, the trauma doctors did an exploratory surgery to find the source of internal bleeding.

“The hematoma was the size of a basketball. He had bruised organs. They put a wound vac on his abdomen for three days to drain the bleeding. On day four, he was closed up and rested for the next two major surgeries. Then, on day five, they fixed his pelvis robotically, which was less invasive. The pelvis surgery took six hours. The next day, doctors repaired vertebrae in his back, which was another six-hour surgery.”

That was how the first week after the fall went for Rodney and his family. And the long road to recovery was just beginning.

Read part two of his compelling farm accident story and the road to a long but miraculous recovery Tuesday at nebraskafarmer.com.