The missing half of the story
The first time I tried to get A. Lane Sagers’ account of the wreck, he was soaking in an Arkansas hot spring.
When I called again, he was at physical therapy.
In other words, he’s still living with the wreck.
Sagers was driving his tractor on U.S. 61 in Clinton County on Feb. 28 when he was hit by “a terrific blow” from the back. The blade that was mounted on the back of his tractor snapped off the frame and was pushed underneath the tractor.
That blade probably saved his life.
“This sounds silly because it is, but I thought an airplane hit me,” he said. “It’s amazing what goes through your mind when you’re sailing through the air.”
But it was no airplane that hit Sagers. It was Brandi Rubel, 18, who police said was talking on her cell phone when she slammed into the back of the tractor. In an April 6 column, Rubel’s mom said the cops got it wrong, and Brandi had merely glanced at her phone and didn’t see Sagers until she was right on top of him.
The wreck “shook Brandi to her very being,” Heidi Rubel said. For Sagers, the shaking was literal.
“He was just black and blue all over,” said his wife, Berna Sagers. “I never will understand how either of them survived. I’m amazed that he had all his parts. Somebody was with them both that day.”
Again, a figurative reference that also is literal. Immediately after the crash, two passers-by stopped. One was a medic from Wisconsin who happened to have first aid gear in his pickup. He dressed Sagers’ wounds and kept a blood-pressure cuff on him until an ambulance arrived.
Amazingly, Sagers stayed with the tractor after the impact. Judging by a picture of what was left of the front end of Rubel’s car, the impact was tremendous.
And judging by the softball-sized lump on the back of Sagers’ head, he suspects the roll bar kept him from being ejected.
With the exception of “a fuzzy spot or two,” he remembers everything. He didn’t hear the car coming because of the noise of the tractor. But he remembers “being catapulted through the air” on the tractor, seeing the smashed car behind him afterward, and he remembers Rubel saying how sorry she was.
Her attention to Sagers ended there, however, which surprises and disappoints the couple.
“I raised five children and, if one of them had hurt somebody in a manner that was entirely their fault, I would have had genuine concern for that person,” he said.
“I just can’t believe no one’s called to see how he’s doing,” Berna Sagers said. “It wouldn’t be that way if it had been one of our kids.”
Sagers, who said he is “74 with a lot of miles,” had begun to fret that he never would have another pain-free day for the rest of his life. Always active before the crash, he found himself barely able to get himself out of his “TV chair” because of the pain and stiffness throughout his body.
But the physical therapy is starting to work.
“For the first time, I feel like I might be OK,” he said Monday. “Somebody up there likes me. These damn cell phones ought to be outlawed in cars, though. That’s for sure.”
Barb Ickes can be contacted at (563) 383-2316 or bickes@qctimes.com.