AgrAbility Quarterly. Client Story – John Baird: Tractor hand clutches and a positive attitude keep an Indiana farmer going

Client Story – John Baird: Tractor hand clutches and a positive attitude keep an Indiana farmer going

It’s not often when someone can recall the exact moment when his/her life changes forever, but John Baird of Rockville, Indiana. can tell you his exact moment was at 5:32 p.m. on June 5, 1977. The 24 year old farmer was riding his motorcycle home from the fields during a severe summer storm, when suddenly a tree was blown over onto his motorcycle. The impact knocked him unconscious and ignited the motorcycle’s gas tank.

“When I came to, everything was on fire,” remembers John. His left foot was tangled in the wreckage and he could not free himself. “I burned my hand trying to free my leg and that’s when my watch stopped – 5:32 p.m. Luckily, my brother who was following on a different bike found me.”

John sustained burns over 60 percent of his body, which required extensive skin grafts, and his left leg was amputated 5 inches below the left knee. Initially, doctors did not expect him to survive the accident, much less resume farming, but John wasn’t willing to stop working on his family’s farm.

A color photo of John Baird sitting on his All Terrain Vehicle at his farm in Indiana. John and the vehicle are stopped in front of a large silver shed on a dirt area.
John Baird on his ATV overseeing his farm operation.

“When I was in the burn unit and recovering, I just kept repeating what my mother always said – ‘Everything will work out.’ I know it sounds silly, but if you’re bitter, nothing is going to work. The best thing is to keep your sense of humor.”

John’s positive attitude and determination to get back to farming helped him through the long recovery. “It was a year before I could work,” recalls John. “I went to work for Moorman Manufacturing Co., a livestock feed and equipment company, as a salesman but kept farming part-time too.” For the next 14 years, John worked both on and off the farm. In 1998, he decided to return to farming full-time and quickly settled back into running the 70-head brood cow and 450-acre row crop and hay operation that has been in his family for more than 60 years.

Dealing with an old problem

While John enjoyed farming full-time again, a persistent problem with his thigh-corset prosthetic was becoming more than an annoyance. It was affecting his ability to walk around the farm. The grafted skin on John’s amputated leg is extremely sensitive and more fragile than normal skin. This makes using prosthetics quite difficult and painful. John explains, “I only have so many steps in me before my leg hurts, so I need to save steps whenever I can.”

One way John saves steps is through the use of an ATV to assist him in performing everyday chores around the farm. Unfortunately, this was not enough as John was having difficulty operating the foot pedals in his tractors. The pressure applied to the prosthetic while pushing the tractor's foot clutch aggravated his sensitive stump and left John in agonizing pain at the end of the day.

In 1999, a friend told John about Purdue University’s Breaking New Ground (BNG) program, Indiana’s AgrAbility project. John contacted BNG and arranged an on-site work assessment of his farm operation. BNG identified two initial methods of reducing stress to his leg; installing hand-clutches in his tractors and modifying the farm’s fences and gates.

After much consideration, John decided to install the hand clutches first. Using the information and literature from BNG, John worked with a local welder to put in new hand clutches on all of his tractors. They have been a huge success and greatly reduce the stress applied to his leg each day. “I can run that stuff all day without pain now,” says John.

A color photo of a man named John Baird, who is sitting in his tractor. John is demonstrating his hand controls that replaced his foot operated controls.
John Baird demonstrating his tractor’s hand controls.

As for BNG’s other recommendations, John hasn’t ruled out installing cattle guards or ATV ramps to his gates and fencing. Those modifications would reduce John’s needs to dismount his vehicles to operate the gates, which in turn would further decrease the stress applied to his leg. “If I was having problems right now, I’d do it,” explains John. “It’s possible I’ll put in additional modifications in the future. But they [BNG] helped me with my major problem. Plus, this way I get some exercise.” If John eventually finds a need to conserve a few more steps throughout his day, he’s looking forward to working with BNG again and anticipates enlisting the help of Indiana’s vocational rehabilitation system to assist with the modifications to the fences and gates.

Today, John is content with his hand clutches and ATV. He’s also having fun diversifying his farm operation. For the past five years, John and two friends have operated a maple syrup camp that produces about 40 gallons of maple syrup. Last year, in addition to his regular crops (soybean, corn, wheat and hay), John planted an acre of pumpkins that he sold through a local auction house and an acre of sorghum that yielded almost 55 gallons of molasses. “I’m just trying to get people together and keep a little bit of the old stuff alive,” notes John.

Focus – Lower Extremity Amputations

In This Issue
Section 1: Client Story – Tractor hand clutches and a positive attitude keep an Indiana farmer going Section 2: Focus – Lower Extremity Amputations Section 3: Assistive Technology Notes – Lower Extremity Prosthetic Devices	Section 4: State Project Feature – Breaking New Ground-Indiana Section 5: References and Resources Section 6: Contacts