# Saved



## Caju (Dec 14, 2013)

February 9th 2013

A 51yo Ohio man went to help a friend from church with intentions of cutting down a large tree in the Akron area. I'm told that man just happened to be me...
I've been in construction my whole life and just enjoyed playing with chainsaws often taking down trees for friends in my spare time.
I've been using chainsaws since I was a teenager at home, I've done some crazy things and somehow never had an accident with chainsaws, this time was different.
Because of the size of the tree and surrounding buildings we decided to use a crane to assist with the take down as we had done a few times before with no problems. We met a little before 7am with 5 saws and started taking down some limbs, dang we were having fun!
None of us were climbers and no bucket truck, no worries. I had a 40' extension ladder and would tie it off to the limb on the tree side and take off the limb after it was attached to the crane. It was all going good until an 18-20" by 35' limb that I had cut freakishly turned and somehow released itself when I was on my way down the ladder. They said I was well over halfway down when the limb hit me knocking me off the ladder. To make sure I didn't get away the limb decided to land on me and pin me to the ground! Unable to move the limb the other 3 men started up another saw and made a few cuts to free me. The sweet old 026 I was carrying was smashed...
I wasn't moving or breathing, I looked like a dead man. An ambulance quickly came and took me to the hospital where I stayed for 19 days, 17 in ICU and 2 days in step down, then in a nursing home for 3 months. I have NO memory of my 19 days in the hospital.
I'm told all of my ribs were broken, one missed a main artery by a fraction of an inch that would have given the limb a kill shot had it hit according to the doctors. Both lungs were punctured and collapsed. My nose was broken, multiple fractures in the back of my skull, The Plastic Surgeon that spent 7+ hrs on my face said my jaw was pulverized with bone chips everywhere.. I now have 4 plates and 23 screws in my jaw.
Both collar bones were broken, the right one had two or 3 breaks and now has a unique shape. The bone that holds the right shoulder joint had several breaks and is now healed tilted down. Multiple breaks in the right shoulder blade,10 broken vertebrae, several breaks in my right ankle and a few broken toes on that foot.
I had my mouth wired shut, had a trach in my throat and a feeding tube going into my stomach for 8+ weeks. I felt like one lucky prisoner...
My family was initially told by the Doctors that it was a miracle I survived, but that there was a chance I'd end up paralyzed and or brain damaged.
I had so much pain I really couldn't function without pain meds and was worried that I'd either need them for a few years or become addicted. God had mercy on me and healed me. I no longer need or want pain meds, haven't needed any in over 4 months and I'm back to work.
I went from a muscular 6' 200 lbs to a scrawny 165 lb. But I feel healthy and I'm SO blessed to be doing so well! I can walk, run, ride bike, and love going out with my chainsaws!


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## archer (Dec 14, 2013)

Good to here you are 100%. Wow


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## Gologit (Dec 14, 2013)

Quite a story.


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## SecondGenMonkey (Dec 17, 2013)

Holy nuts.

Oh, and now I feel twiggy at 6'1 and 145.... thanks, LOL.

Always good to hear or read a survival against all odds.

sent using logic and reason from a device forged of witchcraft.


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## JanThorCro (Dec 17, 2013)

Caju said:


> February 9th 2013
> 
> It was all going good until an 18-20" by 35' limb that I had cut freakishly turned and somehow released itself when I was on my way down the ladder.



What & How did you attach to the limb?

Glad to hear your still with us.


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## Caju (Dec 17, 2013)

SecondGenMonkey said:


> Holy nuts.
> 
> Oh, and now I feel twiggy at 6'1 and 145.... thanks, LOL.
> 
> ...




Whoa... Sorry, guess I didn't think very far when I wrote that! Lol, but my wingspan is around 6'6'' so I'm sure you look much more muscular than I do! I no longer have a chest at ALL...

We used a chain sling with 2 spring loaded safety hooks on that limb and choker cables earlier.


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## SecondGenMonkey (Dec 17, 2013)

Caju said:


> Whoa... Sorry, guess I didn't think very far when I wrote that! Lol, but my wingspan is around 6'6'' so I'm sure you look much more muscular than I do! I no longer have a chest at ALL...
> 
> We used a chain sling with 2 spring loaded safety hooks on that limb and choker cables earlier.


Lol. Nope, I'm a skinny twig... brb.

sent using logic and reason from a device forged of witchcraft.


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## SecondGenMonkey (Dec 17, 2013)

See? Twiggy. 

I max out naturally at 150.... and it looks like this...






sent using logic and reason from a device forged of witchcraft.


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## Caju (Dec 17, 2013)

Oh yeah! Look at all that muscle!  I really AM bonier than that... My bones are fat! 
Dude, You've got delts, pecs, AND biceps! My right collar bone sticks way out and has a nasty bow to it. And my ribs have no meat. When I first saw myself in the mirror shirtless I had to sit down a while. The guy that used to stare back at me was gone! Lol, but I'm HERE and I'm happy!


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## SecondGenMonkey (Dec 17, 2013)

Better to be alive and twiggy than to be fat and dead, LOL.

sent using logic and reason from a device forged of witchcraft.


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## Caju (Dec 18, 2013)

SecondGenMonkey said:


> Better to be alive and twiggy than to be fat and dead, LOL.
> 
> sent using logic and reason from a device forged of witchcraft.



That's a fo sho! Can I use that as my new line? EVERYONE tells me I'm way too skinny and need to put on weight. I'm just a new guy! I'm NOT the guy they used to know.


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## sgreanbeans (Dec 20, 2013)

Wow, glad ur ok.


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## Caju (Dec 20, 2013)

sgreanbeans said:


> Wow, glad ur ok.



Thanks, me too! Embarrassing but sometimes I still get choked up when I think of how blessed and fortunate I am...


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## sgreanbeans (Dec 21, 2013)

I would like you to post this also on the home owners forum above. We preach about this all the time and then some feel that we are just trying to keep guys from doing it, as it is what we get paid for. Partly true I guess, but the main reason for us to always say "hire a pro" is exactly what happened to you. Many guys are very capable of doing many things. Our experience in recognizing the risk's involved on each individual job is what keeps us alive and separates us from the rest. We see things that others don't and often can somewhat predict what will happen. This allows us to adjust to that particular tree and work it as needed. Every tree is different and every location is different. But they are all dangerous. Your experience will educate many, so I thank you for sharing it. The bozo's who will talk trash, forget them, they would talk trash on anything.


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## Caju (Dec 22, 2013)

sgreanbeans said:


> I would like you to post this also on the home owners forum above. We preach about this all the time and then some feel that we are just trying to keep guys from doing it, as it is what we get paid for. Partly true I guess, but the main reason for us to always say "hire a pro" is exactly what happened to you. Many guys are very capable of doing many things. Our experience in recognizing the risk's involved on each individual job is what keeps us alive and separates us from the rest. We see things that others don't and often can somewhat predict what will happen. This allows us to adjust to that particular tree and work it as needed. Every tree is different and every location is different. But they are all dangerous. Your experience will educate many, so I thank you for sharing it. The bozo's who will talk trash, forget them, they would talk trash on anything.



Thanks for your kindness, the truth is that I didn't sleep real well after posting it on here and almost deleted it the next morning. I DID delete part of it. It just seemed a little weird that I told my OWN story and my experience has been that nobody really wants to hear the boring story. 
I've tried to go slowly and carefully when cutting with chainsaws, especially as I got older. I really don't know why it didn't work out this time but I've accepted the fact that God had a plan. I know I didn't deserve to live or to be doing this well, I'm almost normal now and the freaky thing is that I've never been normal in my life! God has been so good and merciful. Every day I am amazed with something that I can now do comfortably. I've accepted that I'm never going to physically be the man that I was before the accident, but I can and want to be a better man in other ways!
I've always enjoyed watching you guys that do this for a living and I'm always impressed at how easy you make it look! From now on I'll only fool around with my saws and let professionals do the real jobs!


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## shootingarts (Dec 22, 2013)

Caju said:


> Thanks for your kindness, the truth is that I didn't sleep real well after posting it on here and almost deleted it the next morning. I DID delete part of it. It just seemed a little weird that I told my OWN story and my experience has been that nobody really wants to hear the boring story.
> I've tried to go slowly and carefully when cutting with chainsaws, especially as I got older. I really don't know why it didn't work out this time but I've accepted the fact that God had a plan. I know I didn't deserve to live or to be doing this well, I'm almost normal now and the freaky thing is that I've never been normal in my life! God has been so good and merciful. Every day I am amazed with something that I can now do comfortably. I've accepted that I'm never going to physically be the man that I was before the accident, but I can and want to be a better man in other ways!
> I've always enjoyed watching you guys that do this for a living and I'm always impressed at how easy you make it look! From now on I'll only fool around with my saws and let professionals do the real jobs!




Nothing worse than asking someone how they are doing and they tell you!  A nurse asked me how I was doing in the waiting room, I said "Mighty fine, how about yourself?" A quarter hour later we were in the examining room and the same nurse asked how I was doing. I started telling her about some recent changes I was concerned about and she pointed out I had just told her I was doing mighty fine. I said, "Out there it was a social question, in here it is a professional question."

A friend went under a cyclone fence on a motocross motorcycle. I didn't see him all the time, just a guy I had been over to his house a few times and bumped into now and then, his brother and I had went to school together. He was 6'-4" or thereabouts and looked like a skeleton walking when I saw him at a little corner store. he weighed a hundred pounds! He was proud of himself, he had got down to seventy pounds in his hospital stay. I didn't see how he could have been a pound under the weight he was when I saw him and still lived.

I have had quite a few injuries over the years, none to speak of saw related. For about a year back pain was so severe it looked like I was either going to have to die or go on the same drugs they give terminally ill patients, deliberately become a junkie. Pain was unrelenting 24/7 at a level most can't imagine. Neither route had much appeal. Some friends were getting together in Dakota for a shoot, I forget in north or south. I didn't believe I could hurt any worse on the road than I did at home so I made the trip from Louisiana. Didn't work out as planned and we went to the Thunder Basin Grasslands in Wyoming. Thirty miles from blacktop my brakes went out on my Suburban, a discovery I made as I was going up a blind hill in very dusty conditions. I topped the hill and found a truck in the middle of the road. Steep bank going up on the left, a long ways down on the right. Fresh out of options and not really much in the way of reaction time I slammed into the back of the truck. Wrapped the front of my Suburban around the engine block, including my new radiator that was never gonna be new again!

I knew it was going to be a long time before I got any medical assistance so I took a mega dose of pills but still no more than I had taken at once before and after undoing my belts laid over on the seat and commenced kicking on my door with both feet trying to get out. That was perhaps the most successful procedure I ever had done on my back! Didn't help or hurt function any but it reduced pain about fifty percent tearing everything loose in my back and letting things heal up in a different position. Never did get any medical help and made a short hop to Pueblo Colorado the next day after returning to the scene to retrieve my guns and equipment left with friends. The next day I drove the rest of the way home in one 23.5 hour blast with the one ton rental's throttle backed up against the governor most of the way so I could take pills again once I was home.

A long winded way of saying we never know what life brings around the corner and if it will be good or bad. I have seen people almost fully recover from levels of injuries that should have killed them and people crippled for life seemingly for no reason. Life is full of wonders and the occasional miracle. Without that wreck about fifteen years ago I sincerely doubt I would be here today. We can believe in God or the god of our flavor, or just happy accidents, miracles happen for people somewhere every day!

I'm glad to hear you are doing well and things are looking up! Always better times ahead if we just hang in there.

Hu


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