Bulletin E-Edition:
more photosMichael Adams’ right arm was severed in July 1999 when the gears of a wheel-line irrigation
machine similar to this one pulled his clothing and arm through the gears. “It was a slow-moving
machine,” says his father, Richard. “Once he realized he was caught, he had to stand there and wait for
it to take his arm off.”
The family has saved a box full of letters and news clippings written about Adams. The National Enquirer wrote a story about the “gutsy kid,” then 13, from tiny Crane.
Rob Kerr / The Bulletin
His injury made him famous; his attitude got him through it
Meet Michael Adams Nine years ago, a boy from Crane had his arm severed in a farming accident. The 13-year-old was thrust into the national spotlight when the story of how he saved himself was revealed. How has he recovered?
By Lauren Dake / The Bulletin
Published: September 07. 2008 4:00AM PSTCRANE — One local news station called him the “comeback kid.”
Another newscaster told viewers that Michael Adams’ story “takes my breath away.” One said the story was an “inspiration.”
Sometimes the 22-year-old junior at Brigham Young University-Idaho doesn’t feel like explaining what happened to him on a farm nine years ago. So, Michael Adams lets the newscasters, the German documentary filmmaker, the “Maury Povich Show” and all the other media that crowded around him after his right arm was severed do it for him.
Adams finds the New York-based Maury Povich talk show especially amusing.
In the video, he walks on stage, a skinny 13-year-old with braces. His short blondish red hair is combed and parted. The cameras flash to audience members who gasp and look shocked as Povich explains what the teen went through to save his arm. Adams’ name appears on screen, underneath it the explainer reads: “Michael says he had to carry his torn-off arm through fields.”
In his living room, 13 surgeries and nine years later, Adams laughs.
Michael “says” he had to carry his arm, Adams repeats from the screen. As if it’s alleged, he says.
Today, the farm boy from tiny Crane, about 30 miles east of Burns, has about 85 percent of the movement back in his arm, and he can pretty much do whatever others his age can.
But he won’t ever be the fighter pilot he once dreamed of. And he was never the star football player he may have had the potential to be.
After the accident, surgeries and physical therapy consumed a large part of his life. He says that if you measured his scar tissue, it would stretch 10 feet. He’s no longer working in the fields of that Eastern Oregon farm but is studying business. He’s spent two years in Brazil, at the mouth of the Amazon, and when he graduates from college, he pictures doing something that incorporates Brazil, the U.S. and lucrative business deals.
He doesn’t see Crane or farming in his future.
It’s difficult to pinpoint how the accident changed his life. The main thing that comes to his mind, and his parents’, is the athletic opportunity he missed out on as a teenager. One thing is apparent, though: After an accident that could have killed him, Adams survived with his spirit and sense of humor intact.
•••
The morning of July 17, 1999, Adams remembers he had a bowl of Fruit Loops for breakfast.
It was cold around 6:30 a.m., and he was helping a farmer who lived in the valley move the wheel lines that irrigated his fields.
The 13-year-old was dressed in an oversized black sweatshirt and a down jacket with a broken zipper. To move the sprinklers forward, Adams had to reach across the gears. That’s when his jacket got caught.
“It was a slow-moving machine,” Adams’ father, Richard, said. “Once he realized he was caught, he had to stand there and wait for it to take his arm off.”
It took about 30 seconds. His right arm was gone, pinched off just above the elbow.
“I remember picking up my arm and moving toward the four-wheeler,” Adams said.
The all-terrain vehicle was about 100 yards away. Adams hopped on it, started the machine with his left hand and stuck his arm between his legs. He drove a quarter of a mile or so and tried to make a left turn. But his balance was off and he crashed. The four-wheeler rolled several times.
He ran to a nearby shop where, although nobody was home, he knew he could find another four-wheeler. He crashed again, that time nearly breaking his hip and making it hard to run.
But he did run — another quarter of a mile — before he reached a neighbor’s house.
He covered about two miles total before he reached his destination.
He doesn’t remember much after arriving at the woman’s house, where he would eventually get help. He knows he locked the gate behind him; the woman was still sleeping, and he didn’t want her dog to get out.
“It’s bred in these kids, in this country: You go through a gate, you close it,” his dad said.
Once inside, Adams told the woman he cut off his arm, then he politely asked for a glass of water.
“As it turned out, there were two first-responders right there … in a little house next to hers,” Richard Adams said. “And they knew exactly what to do.”
The teenager doesn’t remember what he said, but others do. He spoke nothing of his arm, but he was concerned the medical bills would cost his family their farm. He kept apologizing.
•••
It happened the summer between seventh and eighth grade. It was supposed to be his year in football. Instead, he would spend a month of that summer at Oregon Health & Science University in Portland.
“I had surgeries for four or five years straight,” Adams said. “Most people my age at that time would have been riding horses, but because of my circumstances, I couldn’t.”
•••
Crane currently has a population of about 150 people.
It’s the kind of town where when something tragic happens to a community member, people become family. Neighbors farmed the Adams’ fields while they were at the hospital, refusing to be compensated for their work.
And people across the country called the Adams offering to pay for hospital bills. Luckily, the family had good insurance through his mother Nancy Adams’ teaching job. But money raised did help the family get across the mountains to Portland for the numerous trips to OHSU.
Just months after the accident, Adams was quoted as saying he was determined to heal 100 percent. The youngest of seven children, Adams was always the kid who had to go farther, faster. He’s always been ambitious, his dad said. And freshman year, he did get back to playing basketball. At first, dribbling with his left hand, opponents would steal the ball. But by senior year, he was the varsity point guard and had the team’s most steals.
There was a time, after several surgeries and a couple of years, that the reality of what had happened did sink in.
“It was probably my sophomore year,” Adams said. “I don’t remember what my diagnosis of the situation was before that, but sophomore year it dawned on me things weren’t going to be like what I had planned. I did go into a depression.
“… But I changed my attitude sophomore to junior year … It wasn’t going to be like how I planned, like I wanted to be a fighter pilot and this and that, sports weren’t going to be the way I had planned … This is what I’ve been given, and I have to take it for what it is. Your choices after that change.”
Adams, whose sense of humor is apparent, would write one-line jokes that had appeared on the longtime “Saturday Night Live” segment “Deep Thoughts by Jack Handey” on his arm, where doctors were scheduled to cut before a surgery. Adams remembers writing, “Probably the saddest thing you’ll ever see is a mosquito sucking on a mummy. Forget it, little friend.”
“The doctor always said it was his attitude that got him through all this,” Richard Adams said.
A good attitude was necessary — because it wasn’t an easy journey. There were days when Adams didn’t want to go to physical therapy, days he would have liked to pretend none of this happened.
When his arm was first reattached, it was put on crooked.
“To get the blood flowing,” his father said. “They were in a hurry; they wanted to get life into it. We noticed he was doing some strange things … They cut it again later and realigned it until it was right.”
•••
When the Adamses heard of what happened to Bend resident Cole Ortega, 14, whose arm was severed this summer in a surfing accident, their empathy was visible.
Cole is a young, athletic teenager — just like Adams was when his arm was severed.
Adams says there are no quick pearls of wisdom he can offer to help Cole through the healing process. His father says their faith has helped. But Michael Adams isn’t sure if accidents happen for a reason, or if they just happen.
There is a quote that has helped him though.
“Benjamin Franklin said, ‘I’m a firm believer in luck; I find the harder I work, the more I have of it.’” And remembering that, Adams said, helps.
Lauren Dake can be reached at 541-419-8074 or at ldake@bendbulletin.com.
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