By PHYLLIS ZORN

Staff writer

Lost Springs farmer Monty Stuchlik, 72, is now working again after fracturing his spine in an accident that required months of rehabilitation to overcome.

“I came out pretty fortunate,” Stuchlik said.

He was unloading a pallet of chemicals from the trailer of a tractor trailer when he had to pull one extra hard to get the load off the pallet.

“I was right on the edge of the trailer and I fell backward real hard and landed on another semi truck parked next to the trailer,” Stuchlik said.

He hit his back and then hit the ground.

“I was at my farm out by my machine shed,” he said. “I called my wife and she came out.”

He was taken to a Wichita hospital, where surgeons put two rods and eight pins in his back on Easter Sunday.

After two and a half weeks in a Wichita hospital, he was transferred to Newton Medical Center for two weeks of rehabilitation. When the Newton hospital sent him home, he had home health care and another two weeks of physical therapy.

“The doctor wanted me up,” Stuchlick said. “The pins secured everything pretty well.”

It took four months for him to heal. In the meantime, his sons, Daniel and Ross, both in their 30s, stepped up to the plate and did all the farm work.

The family farm includes soybeans, corn, milo, alfalfa, and a cow/calf operation.

“They kind of took things over and were able to get things done,” he said.

The four-generation family farm kept going without a hitch.

Around the first of September he was given permission to resume most of his normal activities.

He has lifting limits and cannot lift anything heavy, but he’s driving the combine, operating the sprayer, and doing most of the work he did before.

“I’m still active on the farm,” Stuchlik said.

Stuchlik said an event such as that “really wakes you up” and he is thankful for the help he was given, not just by family but by emergency responders and others.

Although Stuchlik grew up on the farm formerly operated by his father and grandfather before him, he lived and worked off the farm until his father retired 30 years ago. Now his sons farm alongside him.