Two years after surviving feed mill accident, David Wallace makes progress despite hard challenges

<p class="p1">Two years ago next week, on a hot August afternoon at Thornfield, David Wallace’s left leg became caught in an auger that was moving cotton seed hulls into a bin at Donley Feed Mill. As he marks the two-year anniversary of that grim, Aug. 17, 2015, accident, David, 50, says he doesn’t know “whether to celebrate or cry.”</p><p class="p4">He’s thankful to be alive but still devastated by the tragedy that turned his life upside down. </p><p class="p4">On that Monday two years ago he was doing a job he’d done many times before during his nearly two years working at the feed mill. </p><p class="p4">A load of cotton seed hulls had been unloaded. “They’re light, and they won’t go through the safety grate” over the auger, David said. So part of the grate over the auger had been removed – as the feed mill workers had done many times before. David got off the tractor loader and “got the broom to sweep them into the auger hole,” he said. </p><p class="p4">But while he was sweeping he slipped, and his left foot slid through the hole where the grate had been removed and went into the spinning, screw-like auger. </p><p class="p4">“I was trying to ride it with my right foot and get off of it, and I almost made it, but then the auger caught the toe of my left shoe,” he said. </p><p class="p4">David’s left leg was quickly pulled into the auger up to about five inches above his knee. “I hollered, and it wasn’t a minute before the other guys were there,” he said.</p><p class="p4">Fellow employees Trey McCullough and Denziel Hathcock had been working upstairs at the feed mill when they heard David’s cries. </p><p class="p4">“The electric motor that turns the auger is belt driven. It got up that far on my leg, and the belt had started slipping. It was smoking when they got there and cut the belt,” David said. </p><p class="p4">Another employee, H.K. Gaulding, called Air Evac, and emergency responders soon rushed to the scene. Wade Turner, who also works at the feed mill and is the Thornfield Volunteer Fire Department chief, rushed to get the firetruck so rescuers would have water to suppress sparks while they used a torch to cut David out of the machinery.  </p><p class="p4">The rescuers worked nearly 90 minutes to get him out of the auger. </p><p class="p4">Amazingly, David insists he felt very little pain while he was caught in the equipment. “I chew tobacco, and I told them, ‘If you’uns will get my Skoal can out of my pocket, I think we can get me out of here,’” he said. </p><p class="p4">He was awake the entire time, he said, “except they put me out for maybe two minutes when they lifted me out to take me to the helicopter.” He remembers hearing one of the emergency medical workers say she couldn’t keep the tourniquet from slipping off his leg. And he knew that, when the emergency personnel finally got him out of the auger, “the front half of my foot was still in the shoe” back in the equipment. “I was awake when they loaded me in the helicopter,” he said.</p><p class="p5"> </p><p class="p6"><strong>A blood transfusion and amputation</strong> </p><p class="p4">He was flown to Baxter Regional Medical Center in Mountain Home, Arkansas, where he was transfused with four units of blood and stabilized before being flown on to the University of Arkansas Medical Sciences Hospital in Little Rock. Surgeons there amputated his left leg just below the hip. “They said my leg was cut half in two in six places and broken in six places,” David said.</p><p class="p4">Amazingly, when he mentioned later to Donnie Cunningham that it was a shame the accident had happened on the day he was wearing a brand-new pair of 501 Levi’s, Donnie told him, “There wasn’t a cut place on them.”</p><p class="p4">After nine days in Little Rock, David was transferred back to BRMC in Mountain Home. </p><p class="p4">His injuries happened at a particularly hard time in his life – and in the lives of his elderly parents, Rex and Kathleen Wallace, whom he lived with in Theodosia. His father was gravely ill at the time, and his brother, Ron, came from Phillipsburg temporarily to stay with their parents while David was hospitalized. On the Sunday after he’d been transferred back to BRMC, David begged his doctor to let him sign out for a few hours to go home and visit his dad.</p><p class="p4">“Connie Johns came and got me,” he said. “I didn’t tell Mom and Dad we were coming. We pulled in and surprised them.” </p><p class="p4">His parents were delighted to see him, even for just a couple of hours – and then David returned to the hospital. Later, after he was discharged, he got to spend the last five days of his dad’s life with him. “I think he was holding on because of me, waiting for me to come home,” David said. “The first two days he didn’t acknowledge me, didn’t know I was there, because of the morphine. Then, the next day, I finally caught him when he was being himself. He said, ‘Well, son,’” David recalled.</p><p class="p4">“I told him I was home and that I was going to be OK and Mom was going to be OK, that me and Ron were there with her. I told him they had to take my leg off, and he said, ‘Peg leg,’” David said.</p><p class="p4">His dad died Sept. 13, just shy of a month after the accident.</p><p class="p3"> </p><p class="p6"><strong>‘I won’t live long enough to see you walk again’</strong> </p><p class="p4">David’s recovery continued, and with the help of friends Vic and Jean Plante, he managed to take care of his widowed mother, whose health was declining, while he worked to keep up with his own therapy and doctor appointments in Mountain Home. His mother’s health continued to fail, though, and she died in January of this year, 16 months after the accident.</p><p class="p4">Talking about it, David’s voice trembles. “Me and Jean, we bathed her, changed her bed, took care of her. It’s hard to do, but you block it out and you do it. Bless her heart, Mom said, ‘I won’t live long enough to see you walk again.’ That’s still something that bothers me so bad,” he said. “I can walk enough to get to my truck and get to the carrier in the back and get out my wheelchair, but I don’t know if I’ll ever be able to really walk on my own again.”</p><p class="p4">David was amazed, during the weeks after the accident, at the medical bills he received – and he was thankful for the arrangements feed mill owner Larry Donley had made decades ago, including signing up for workman’s comp insurance for his employees. That insurance has paid all his medical-related expenses. Donley also belonged to Air Evac, which transported David from Thornfield to Mountain Home – and then on to Little Rock.</p><p class="p4">Air Evac offers its emergency flight service free of charge to subscribing members. But that service, along with other medical providers, soon began flooding the Wallaces’ mailbox and phone with billing inquiries. </p><p class="p4">“I think there were 50 to 60 phone calls and also text messages,” David said. Eventually, he got two Air Evac bills – both marked paid – totaling $86,212. The Little Rock hospital bill, paid by workman’s comp, totaled $101,000.49. </p><p class="p4">Workman’s comp has also paid for David’s physical therapy, which has continued since the accident, with some doctor-ordered breaks, and for mileage to and from Mountain Home for therapy and doctor appointments. Although David can drive, he is often assisted by friends, including Vic Plante, Tyler Dockins, 22, and Ethan Brown, 15, who help him get where he needs to go.</p><p class="p4">Workman’s comp also paid for modifications to his home – a 25-foot-long cement wheelchair ramp to his front door, widening the doors in the house and a shower stall he can roll his wheelchair into. It has also purchased a wheelchair, a walker and two prostheses for him.</p><p class="p4">“When I first got the prosthesis, it had a computerized knee. It never did work right. At random, it would let me fall. It cost $75,000, and it was what workers’ comp recommended, but I told ’em, ‘It’s just not for me.’ Now I have a prosthesis with a hydraulic knee. It cost about $10,000, and it works a lot better,” he said, but he thinks the prosthesis is a little too long and still needs some adjustments. </p><p class="p3"> </p><p class="p6"><strong>Trying to be positive</strong></p><p class="p4">Little by little, David is rediscovering things he can still do, despite his handicap. “I’ve been an auto mechanic most of my life. I had a shop where I worked on cars and fixed tires and stuff. And I raced stock cars for a while; I quit in 2009. But awhile ago a friend of mine told me he’s wanting to build a race car. I told him, ‘I’m not building them anymore. But if you find one that I’m satisfied with, you buy it, and I’ll help you get it ready for the track.’ I sold my tire machine and balancer some years ago, but I bought it back a little while ago, and I’ve fixed some tires and stuff on the weekends when no one else is open. I’ve had tourists tip me $20 to put on a patch.”</p><p class="p4">Despite all the equipment and modifications to his home, and although he knows he’s making progress, David still struggles to cope. “Everyone tells me to think positive, and I do try to be positive, but it’s hard. It’s so hard sometimes,” he said.</p>

<p class="p1">With the help of a walker and a prosthesis equipped with a hydraulic knee, David Wallace is still able to get into his pickup and drive himself where he needs to go, but he’s grateful for the help of friends and neighbors who often accompany him.</p>

<p class="p1">Emergency personnel load David Wallace into an Air Evac helicopter on Aug. 17, 2015, after his leg became caught in an auger that was moving cotton seed hulls into a bin at Donley Feed Mill in Thornfield. David’s left leg was later amputated just below the hip. </p>