By Lori EhdeA 65-year-old Magnolia farmer landed on his head Friday after falling more than 13 feet off the top of a combine.Jack Cragoe returned home from Sioux Valley Hospital Monday night with a brace on his neck and strict orders to take it easy.While he said it’s not easy to slow down when there’s so much to do, Cragoe admits it’s better than being in a wheelchair, or the more likely alternative — dead."The therapist told me, with a T-1 and T-2 fracture like this, a lot of them aren’t here to talk about it," Cragoe said. "And the ones who are here are in a wheelchair like that actor Christopher Reeves."Cragoe said he was working in his machine shop around noon Friday, adjusting an exhaust pipe on top of his combine. When he gave it a tug, the piece broke away, toppling Cragoe backward off the machine.He landed on the top part of his head in the dirt floor below, which is where his neighbor Gary Overgaard found him moments later.Cragoe had just spoken on his cell phone with Overgaard, who was going to give Cragoe a ride back to Luverne to get his pickup from the implement dealer.Cragoe said he was conscious the whole time, but he knew his injuries were serious. "I knew it was probably one of the worst falls I’d taken in my life," he said. "I could feel it in the middle of my back right away."He knows now that he should have remained on the ground and waited for an ambulance, but he said he sat up and allowed Overgaard to bring him to the emergency room in Luverne.At the time, he needed assistance to stand and walk.Cragoe spent Friday, Saturday and Sunday nights in Sioux Valley Hospital, Sioux Falls, and was released late Monday afternoon.Doctors identified seven fractures in his neck and back, but opted not to operate, because risk for paralysis was too great.Instead, he was sent home in a rigid neck brace that he can remove only long enough to shower and shave. He wears a different, plastic brace for those times.He’s able to walk around, and is remarkably nimble, considering his injuries. "I can’t drive, and I can’t lift, but I’m up around," he said. "I’ve had a lot of time here to think about it, and I gotta feel pretty lucky. There’s a lot with this that could have happened differently. … The good Lord was watching over me."
