Seen On

A Horrible Farm Accident, An Inspiring Comeback

BARRON, Wis. (WCCO) ― A young farmer walks across a field. While that might not seem amazing, in Sean Klatt's case it is. Late on the last night of January, Sean and his father Mike were working on a jammed conveyor belt.

"He said, 'Dad, just let me, I'll crawl up in the mixer and work on it from up there,'" Mike recalled.

They thought they had the belt fixed.

"He hit the wrong switch," said Sean.

"Well, two switches were right next to each other, and I flipped the wrong, the wrong one," said Mike.

The mixer blades grabbed Sean's foot and sliced it. Sean's sister ran for help.

"'Sean's caught. Sean's caught.' And just the way she was screaming, I thought, I'm calling 911, I don't care," said Sean's mother Jane, who raced to the barn.

"I moved Sean's leg, I didn't know, and his foot just, it fell," she said, gesturing with her hand. "The boot was cut, and it just hung there by strings."

Nobody knew it, but Sean's father was hurt, too. It was Mike's second hand injury. Decades earlier he lost the fingers on his right hand in another farm accident.

"I said, 'I can't afford to lose anymore, so you guys gotta do a good job with this one,'" said Mike.

At Mayo Clinic, surgeons worked to fix Mike's good hand in a seven-and-a-half hour surgery. In another operating room, they reattached Sean's severed foot.

"I couldn't really understand how they could, but if they said that they're gonna, that was good," said Sean. "That's all I cared about."

Back in Barron, Wis. neighbors ran the dairy farm and helped with the Klatt's five other children.

"They just took over to take care," said Jane. "It wasn't just the family taking care of the family, it was the whole community."

A few weeks later, Mike and Sean came home.

"That was the longest, getting them two to sit still," said Jane, who joked about getting a babysitter for them to be sure they'd rest.

Sean was feeling antsy.

"It was getting old just sitting at home too, doing nothing all day," he said. "I don't like to just be sitting around, I like to be doing something."

Sean headed back to high school and technical college, where he was working on an associates degree in Dairy Herd Management.

"I had a little bit of catching up to do," he said. "But the most part, it wasn't too hard."

Jane tried to give her son an "out."

"I said, 'Now Sean, just because you went to college for Dairy Herd Management does not mean you have to do it. A lot of kids go to school for four years and change their major and end up doing something else,' and he grabbed me by the arm and said, 'Mom, I live to farm,'" said Jane.

"Ever since I can remember, I always knew this is what I wanted to do, so," explained Sean.

"Things happen, and you can't go back and change 'em, so you have to go on," said Mike.

For his family, moving on meant selling their dairy herd. They didn't think it was right to make their neighbors work so much on their farm.

"Come bossies, come on," called Mike to a few cows at the Klatt farm. There are still a handful of cows left, including a few of Sean's. Pointing to one, Mike said, "This one was his, but he gave it to his girlfriend for a graduation present."

Three months after the accident, the Klatts returned to Mayo Clinic. That's when doctors told Sean to try walking without crutches.

"He hadn't been on it for three months," recalled Mike. "He kind of looked at the doctor and said, 'You mean? Just walk?' and he said, 'Yeah, walk.'"

Sean walked and he's been walking ever since. The next day he returned to work at a neighbor's dairy farm, and his father found a job.

"It's just amazing, if you're willing to work, I think sometimes work finds you," said Mike.

Their empty stalls show how much they've lost.

"Everything looks a little different when it's not being used," said Sean. "It's kind of hard to get used to, I guess."

They focus on what they've gained -- a new appreciation for modern medicine and everyday life.

"I guess I probably take a little more from it now that I realize how much there is to lose," said Sean.

"I think it's a miracle," said Jane. "If you saw what I saw, there's no way there should be a foot on there. There just shouldn't be."

"We've received more out of it than we lost, so we're very fortunate," said Mike.

And that's something they'll be reminded of every step of Sean's life.

 

(© MMVIII, CBS Broadcasting Inc. All Rights Reserved.)

---