{"id":634,"date":"2009-06-19T16:49:30","date_gmt":"2009-06-19T20:49:30","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.irawagler.com\/?p=634"},"modified":"2010-07-10T23:55:55","modified_gmt":"2010-07-11T03:55:55","slug":"calling-amos","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.irawagler.com\/?p=634","title":{"rendered":"Calling Amos…"},"content":{"rendered":"

photo-2-small.JPG<\/a> <\/p>\n

\u201cThere is in every true woman\u2019s heart, a spark of heavenly fire,
\nwhich lies dormant in the broad daylight of prosperity, but which
\nkindles up and beams and blazes in the dark hour of adversity.\u201d<\/p>\n

—Washington Irving
\n________________<\/p>\n

I really don\u2019t know how I get myself into these situations. It\u2019s certainly not like any- thing is planned, or that I\u2019m out consciously looking for adventure. But somehow, stuff just happens. And that day, there I was, in the thick of it all. Not as a participant, just an observer, a chronicler. And what I saw and heard left an indelible impression. <\/p>\n

It was a Saturday afternoon a few weeks back. Beautiful sunny day. Planting season. Amish farmers tilled the fields with great jangling teams of horses and mules. <\/p>\n

I had a late afternoon business appointment at an Amish place. I arrived right on time, 4 o\u2019clock. Half an hour or so later, after taking care of the business at hand, we sat at the kitchen table and talked. <\/p>\n

Twice, I almost left. But for some reason, I sat there and continued visiting. Which is unusual. I\u2019m normally not that sociable. We weren\u2019t discussing anything important. Just this and that, mostly small talk about mutual acquaintances. But then it was time to leave. I took my briefcase and prepared to go. <\/p>\n

And at that instant, suddenly the door burst open. The Amish housewife who lived next door poked her head into the kitchen. Spoke urgently. There had been an accident in a nearby field. Something about a young Amish boy and a team of mules. <\/p>\n

We all rushed out of the house and ran across the field, which was right next to the house. And there, less than a quarter mile away, at the neighbor\u2019s buildings, stood a six mule team. Several men milled about. The team had been unhooked from the harrow, a wicked looking contraption with curved tines designed to rip the earth. The men were frantically tugging at the harrow, unhooking sections from each other. As I approached, they lifted a section and flipped it back. I couldn\u2019t see from where I was, but I knew a boy had been trapped and dragged by the harrow.<\/p>\n

We got there a few seconds before the EMT medics, who had already been called. Wailing sirens approached in the distance. And there he was, sprawled loosely on the ground, a young lad about ten years old. Covered with dirt, from rolling along the field under the harrow. I don\u2019t know how he was positioned when they found him. When I first saw him, he was flat on his back. <\/p>\n

His clothes were torn and tattered. His face was caked, his nostrils and mouth clogged with dirt. Eyes open, staring into space at nothing. He didn\u2019t move at all. He looked dead. <\/p>\n

The medics arrived as I stood there gaping, running full speed from their vehicles with bags and equipment. With the Amish men who had lifted the harrow, I stood nearby and observed. The medics knelt by the boy and administered first aid. Cleared the dirt from his nose and mouth. Felt for a pulse. Sliced his tattered clothes from his body. Asked for the boy\u2019s name. Called firmly, sharply. \u201cAmos, can you hear me? AMOS!!!\u201d There was no response.<\/p>\n

I don\u2019t know this, but they probably felt his pulse. And knew that he was alive, but just knocked out cold. <\/p>\n

But I figured he was dead. There was no doubt in my mind at all. <\/p>\n

And then, walking through the gate, across the spongy clodded dirt, she came. Not running, just walking fast. A robust, buxom youngish woman, her face and arms reddened from endless hours of toiling in the sun. Barefoot, in a blue dress with a black apron. A light blue scarf on her head, looped and knotted on the back of her neck. She approached, the medics shifted slightly, made room for her. She walked right up to the crumpled, broken body of her son. <\/p>\n

She leaned over him. And she called his name, spoke to him in his native tongue. \u201cAmos, can you hear me? Amos, these men are here to help you. Amos.\u201d<\/p>\n

Amos. A good solid Lancaster County Amish name. Bland, but solid. He was probably named after one of his grandfathers. Or an uncle. Maybe he was the oldest son. Probably had a string of younger brothers and sisters. These thoughts, and a thousand other jumbled threads, swept fleetingly through my mind as I watched his mother and heard her speak.<\/p>\n

She was calm and cool. No trace of hysteria. No tears. She crouched down briefly, as if to brush her hand on his face. But then she pulled back, so as not to interfere with the medics. She called again. Still no response. No movement. Nothing. <\/p>\n

The head medic spoke in curt commands. Call for a helicopter. Two-way radios blared. The medics were good. Totally focused. Totally efficient. A small stretcher was fetched, and blankets. Somehow they slid the stretcher under the boy. They continued working feverishly. <\/p>\n

The mother paced about. Stopped again, a few feet from her son. Crouched there, slightly bent, her hand resting on her knee. And again she called him. And again, and again. “Amos! Amos!”<\/p>\n

mother-calling-small.jpg<\/a><\/p>\n

Firefighters arrived then and cordoned off the area. I squatted off to the side, with one of the men who had lifted the harrow. He quietly murmured his story to me. He was a nearby neighbor, the husband of the young woman who had alerted us in the kitchen. He had seen Amos all afternoon, driving the team, standing directly behind them on the evener to which the mules were hitched. And then he looked, he said, and saw no one standing on the evener, just the mules plodding across the field. He instantly knew what had happened and rushed out to stop them. By the time he got there, the team had walked all the way to the gate, where they had stopped. The mules hadn\u2019t run away. They\u2019d never even realized that their young driver wasn\u2019t in control. <\/p>\n

Somehow, Amos had bounced off the evener. And instantly got caught in the harrow\u2019s teeth. He had been dragged clear across the field, probably an eighth of a mile. When the men got to him, his left leg was protruding backward from the harrow, snapped in two. <\/p>\n

Neighbors had now gathered, a small knot of a crowd, craning to see. They were cordoned behind the gate to the field, a good hundred feet away. I had absolutely no business being where I was. None whatsoever. But having run across the field from the other direction, and being one of the first on the scene, I stayed. Aside, out of the way. And just watched it all unfold. <\/p>\n

I marveled at the mother. Her calmness. The depths of her quiet strength. She never faltered, never broke down, never shed a tear. Maybe that came later. She was a daughter of generations of tough independent people born to the land, stolid forthright people who tilled the soil and lived fruitful lives of quiet simplicity. Accepted adversity and affliction and tragedy without question as the will of God. And died as they had lived, close to the earth that had sustained them. And at this moment of acute crisis, as the son she had borne lay broken and motionless on the ground, she did not shrink, she did not faint, she did not break, but instinctively summoned a degree of courage and composure that would have been impossible to contrive.<\/p>\n

Her husband stood there silently, watching. He did not call his son. From some deep untaught prompting, they knew. The boy might hear his mother\u2019s voice when all others were lost to him.<\/p>\n

Time seemed frozen, but minutes passed. There was little doubt in my mind the boy was dead. But she stood there, bent slightly forward, and calmly called her son again and again. <\/p>\n

It was not a call of fear. She spoke cheerfully, forcefully, as if rousing him from deep slumber at sunrise. <\/p>\n

\u201cAmos, Amos, wake up! Amos, these men are here to help you. Amos, do you want to go on a helicopter ride? The helicopter is coming! Amos. Amos!\u201d<\/p>\n

That was the only sound, except for the curt, intense voices of the medics and the occasional jolting blare of the two-way radios.<\/p>\n

Again and again she called her son. And again.<\/p>\n

And somewhere, from the subconscious realms to where his soul had slipped, the boy heard the echoes of his mother\u2019s voice. He stirred faintly. And he returned. <\/p>\n

She had called him back. <\/p>\n

He had been utterly unresponsive for what seemed like an eternity. It was probably about ten minutes total, from the time the first men reached him and freed him from the harrow’s teeth. <\/p>\n

The medics realized it before anyone else, as they knelt there beside him. They continued working feverishly, intensely. Strapped him onto the stretcher. Placed an oxygen mask on his face, attached tubes. <\/p>\n

The boy suddenly emitted a high piercing wail of pain and terror. He was awake, and felt the excruciating pain from his shattered leg. His mother crouched down and spoke to him, comforted him. <\/p>\n

We heard the throb of the helicopter then as it chopped in from the east, and circled the field. Swooped down and landed, directed by the firefighters. The door opened. Two medical personnel leaped out and raced to the boy. <\/p>\n

As they transported him to the chopper, I got up and walked back across the field to my truck. As I reached Big Blue, the chopper lifted off and headed west. <\/p>\n

I reflected on the things I\u2019d seen and heard, made some mental notes so I could later tell the story. And realized I didn\u2019t even know the father’s name. Or the mother’s. <\/p>\n

I only knew the first name of their son. <\/p>\n

**********
\nPOST NOTE:<\/p>\n

Amos Stoltzfus, 12, was flown to the Hershey Medical Center that day. Miraculously, he suffered no internal injuries. His left leg was shattered, broken in many places. During the first few weeks, Doctors feared his leg might have to be amputated. <\/p>\n

Those fears were not realized, thankfully. His leg is on the road to full recovery. Amos returned home to his family two days ago. Spurred by the energy and vitality of his youth, he is expected to be walking again in about four weeks. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u201cThere is in every true woman\u2019s heart, a spark of heavenly fire, which lies dormant in the broad daylight of prosperity, but which kindles up and beams and blazes in the dark hour of adversity.\u201d —Washington Irving ________________ I really don\u2019t know how I get myself into these situations. It\u2019s certainly not like any- thing […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-634","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.irawagler.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/634","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.irawagler.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.irawagler.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.irawagler.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.irawagler.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=634"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.irawagler.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/634\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1091,"href":"https:\/\/www.irawagler.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/634\/revisions\/1091"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.irawagler.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=634"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.irawagler.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=634"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.irawagler.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=634"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}