`A Dozen Miracles` Save Missouri Man Impaled by Tree

Last Sunday afternoon, Julie Weir got a call from her husband telling her to call 911, that he was hurt and to come fast.

Weir, 58, hopped in a golf cart and rushed to the pasture where Jack Weir had been working. She saw his Bobcat, then she saw her husband. He had a section of tree protruding from his abdomen.

"He was talking and I just stood there and I told him to hold on," she said. "I told him to pray. I said I had called police and that they were bringing a chain saw and we just needed to wait for them to arrive. I told him to turn off the Bobcat because it was still running."

On Friday, Jack Weir underwent his third surgery at St. Louis University Hospital.

"He's doing OK," his wife said from the hospital. "We've had a dozen miracles."

The first miracle was guiding the rescuers to her husband of 38 years. Jack Weir was on the back 60 acres of the farm at 9211 Bunkum Road where he and his family raise alpacas and rescued llamas.

Paramedics, firefighters and police had to travel down a gully and through a wooded area to reach him.

Fairview Heights Fire Chief Bryan Doyle said Jack Weir was trying to clear a spot for a new pond when he was hurt. While Weir was pushing a pile of trees, one spun up and hit the bucket of the Bobcat, then went through his lower abdomen, Doyle said. The tree was about 4 to 5 inches around.

"We cut the tree - it was still 25 feet long - to get him out of the Bobcat," Doyle said. "He was sitting up in the Bobcat."

The rescuers sawed off the tree until only a 3-foot section remained. Jack Weir was transported to the hospital by helicopter with that section of tree still in him.

"One of the EMTs (emergency medical technicians) - her only job was to hold that log in Jack," Julie Weir said. "All the way up to the waiting helicopter and all the way to the hospital, she held that log in him, which was remarkable."

Julie Weir said her husband was conscious throughout the rescue. "He was very calm, but he did say a bunch of times to get it off me, just cut it off of me," she said. "But of course they couldn't do that because the pressure was what was allowing him to continue to be alive."

The Weirs didn't know until later how much worse things could have been. None of Jack Weir's major organs was hit.

The tree "entered above his left knee and scraped all the way to the inside of his left thigh and then impaled into his lower abdomen and tore all of the oblique muscles - ripped them to shreds - but didn't hit kidneys, intestines, liver, spleen, nothing - which is totally remarkable," Julie Weir said.

Another miracle is that the Bobcat stayed put after the tree went through Weir.

"He said he tried to back up the Bobcat," Julie Weir said. "My standing joke is God leaned on the back of the Bobcat and said there's only so much we can do here. Because if he had backed up that Bobcat he would have pulled that tree out of him, and he surely would have bled to death."

She said her husband is recovering but by no means over all the hurdles from his injury.

"He's not yet aware or awake to talk to us about this," she said.

Jack Weir retired last May after more than 38 years in the Army Reserve. He was on active duty at Scott Air Force Base when he retired. Over a year ago, he had been deployed to Iraq and Afghanistan.

"He was fine there, but he comes home and was hurt on the Bobcat," she said softly. "It was just a freak accident."

Doyle said Jack Weir was either lucky or blessed. "It just wasn't his time to go," Doyle said.

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