Returning to agriculture
THROUGH AGRABILITY
W
BY SHALEY LENSEGRAV & TAMARA CHOAT
illiam Meyers was 21 years old when he had his accident. The single vehicle rollover – he was driving home late from work at the local farm coop – broke his back in three places and left him paralyzed from the T4 vertebrae down. It was March 2015 and Meyers had recently graduated from junior college, returned home, and bought a house and farm of his own near his family’s farm, feedlot and cow-calf operation near Palmer, Neb. The youth in the prime of his life, used to working 60-70 hours at his full-time job then putting in an additional 30-40 hours per week on the farm, was suddenly sitting in a hospital room all day – doing nothing, unable to walk. “The first thing was I just needed to know I could do something,” said Meyers. “I thought of our lawn mower – I figured I could probably drive that. “But it was definitely a downer. I just sat there thinking, ‘How am I going to do all of these things I have to do?’”
PHOTO COURTESY OF WILLIAM MEYERS
Through farm visits and assessing the person’s needs, case workers from AgrAbility are able to come up with a plan to get them back into the line of work that they love.
Two weeks into his stay at the rehabilitation hospital in Lincoln, Neb., he got a surprise visit from Rod Peterson, rural rehabilitation specialist for Nebraska AgrAbility.
Ag Pride 2018
TRI-STATE LIVESTOCK NEWS
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