Times of Trial

In 1979 I was thrown by a pet horse named Trixie, and broke my neck. I had surgery to fuse two vertebra in my neck. The surgeon took two pieces of bone from my left hip blade and wired them to the sides of the vertebra with stainless steel wire. During the intubation for the surgery, the nerve to my right vocal cord was damaged and died. When I came out of surgery, I could only croak like a frog. The medical people allowed that I was most likely hoarse from the surgery, and that it would get better in a few days. It did not. I could not talk or sing for over eight months. Wearing a halo brace for six weeks was bad enough, but not knowing if my voice would come back was even worse. We prayed and prayed, and in the course of time the vocal cord regrew and my voice was restored.

Not long after that, I was driving my tandem grain truck with a thousand gallon liquid fertilizer tank in the back.  The tank was full of urea, and tied loosely with some small chains. I was thinking about India as I was driving up to the Hackworth place to plant corn. I realized that I was approaching the Holder curve too fast, and put on my brakes. The fertilizer tank broke loose, tore off the steel grain sides, and flipped the truck upside down in the middle of the road. All I remember is holding on to the steering wheel as the truck turned over. The next thing I knew, it was dark and I was looking up at the floorboard of the truck. My legs were jammed behind the shift lever and dump lever, wedged against the transmission hump. My head was between the seat and the door. And my back was lying on the crushed top of the truck, which had been mashed level with the widow base and dashboard, leaving it dark inside. There was just barely room for my body between the seat and the top of the truck, which was now the bottom, flattened on the pavement.

But the worst thing was that I had just filled both gasoline tanks, the one behind the seat and the external tank mounted to the frame. I had lost the fill cap to the small tank, and put a beanie weenie can on it to keep the gas from sloshing out and rain from coming in. All that gas poured out under the overturned truck.

I could not move. Gasoline was dripping from the transfer valve for the gasoline tanks, and dropping exactly into a cut I had received in my right eyebrow.  I could hardly breath for the gasoline fumes. When I heard people approaching, I sang out “Don’t light a match! Keep flames away.”

As people gathered and discussed what to do, I kept reminding them to keep all flames away. Meanwhile I was praying for deliverance. The worst thing was knowing that it would be difficult for my family if I were burned alive in that truck. And there was a mighty good chance it would happen, if things were left to chance. Any small spark would have set off that gasoline like a bomb, and there was no way I could get out.

Stuck there in such a precarious situation for forty-five minutes, I took turns praying and warning against lighting a cigarette. Finally my rescuers were able to pry open the door at my feet. But they could still not reach me. Only after they pried my feet from behind the transmission hump with a board, and one brave soul bent the steel dump lever with his bare hands, could they extricate me from the perilous situation.

I really was not hurt, with only a slight cut on my eyebrow, and the gasoline had stopped it from bleeding. But the ambulance had arrived, and they put me on the stretcher and sent me for x-rays. When they checked my blood pressure and pulse rate, it was normal. I gave thanks and thought that I would never feel uncomfortable again. God had brought me through safely, and given me more reason to trust Him. Trials strengthen faith, but my trials were not over. There was much more to come.

Randolph Gonce