Sep 28, 2007 - 04:02:41 CDT
On a field near the house where he grew up, Wes Doepke, 40, harvested his soybeans Thursday in a way he never thought he'd have to do it.He harvested like this:He stood still, for a while. Then he sat for a while, in a parked pickup.
He watched. Just watched.
His eyes were ponds with red rims. Could have been the dust, chaff from the combines, the wind or something else.
Farm Rescue - a nonprofit organization that comes to the aid of farmers in tough circumstances who can't get their farm work done - did the work at Doepke's Monday north of Wilton with volunteers running combines donated by RDO Equipment, which were fueled with donated fuel from the Washburn Cenex.
"I'm so grateful to everyone,"he said. His hands were covered in gauze, his flushed face was still healing - and the rest of his injuries were covered under clothes.
Doepke's harvesting season and life took a turn in July while harvesting wheat about 10 miles northeast of his farm near New Johns Lake.
"We were having fun," he said about how the day started. It was a good crop, there was a blue sky, "and this is what we work for."
But then a fire started in his combine's engine.
He radioed Al Kraft, 37, a longtime friend hired to help Doepke harvest. Kraft was in another combine about an eighth-of-a-mile away.
Kraft remembers Doepke saying, "Al, I'm on fire."
Kraft said he turned to look and the fire already looked bad enough that he warned Doepke to "get out of there." When Kraft got to Doepke's location, the fire was so high he couldn't see the 15-foot-high combine. Kraft was getting a fire extinguisher when he saw Doepke run out of the fire and heard Doepke say, "Al, I'm hurt."
Doepke said he still can't talk about those moments when he found himself surrounded by flames and forced to escape. It's too fresh.
He said he has no memory of the first three weeks at Regions Hospital in St. Paul, Minn. Burns on his chest and arms and tops of his hands required grafts and other treatments. His mother and sister kept vigil. After two months there, Doepke was discharged a week ago. His body is at about 40 percent strength, his doctors told him. Therapy continues in Bismarck two hours a day.
He farms about 4,000 acres. Farm Rescue only had to concentrate on 800 acres. The rest had been done during Doepke's hospital stay.
Kraft, Dirk Erasmus, Doepke's farmhand - and countless friends, neighbors, volunteers seemed to come out of the woodwork, Kraft said.
"My phone was ringing for days,"Kraft said.
Kraft said Doepke is particular about his farming operation, but the volunteers could get no direction from him for several weeks, so they made their own decisions on what was to be done. And when Doepke got home, he was happy.
"They done a good job," Doepke said.
Farm Rescue volunteers helping Doepke Thursday were the organizer's founder, Bill Gross; Bill Krumwiede, of Voltaire; Gene Spichke, of Kief; Warren Zakopyko, of Keif; and Smokey Wright, of Minot.
Farm Rescue, on its second season of helping farmers here and in South Dakota and Minnesota, was founded by Gross, a UPSpilot based in Washington State who grew up on a North Dakota farm. It will help 20 farmers this year. Last year, they helped 10 farmers, Gross said. He expects the number to be higher in 2008.
After Doepke's soybeans and pinto beans are in, Farm Rescue operations move Saturday to Adrian to help a farmer there who was in a car accident. Then there are two more farmers to help: One who has cancer, south of Jamestown; the other, another car accident victim, who farms near Galesburg.
Gross said operating expenses this year for Farm Rescue, funded by donations and corporate sponsors, was about $120,000, or about $6,000 per farm helped. "It's a meager operation," he said.
He said things are "going good,"but harvesting, with weather delays, cost of moving equipment and fuel expenses, cost more than anticipated.
"We could use donations to help offset that," he said.
(Reach reporter Virginia Grantier at 250-8254 or at virginia.grantier@;bismarcktribune.com.)
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