In 1992, 18 year-old John Thompson was working alone on his family’s North Dakota farm. John’s shirt got caught in a grain auger and both of his arms were torn off above the elbow. He passed out but his dog woke him up. What John did next was very brave and very unbelievable.
He walked back to his house and opened the door with his teeth. Once inside, he dialed the seven digit number for the police using a pencil in his mouth (in 1992, his area of North Dakota did not have the 911 emergency number). Then, he went and laid in the bathtub, not wanting to drip blood all over his mom’s new carpet. When emergency services arrived, he loudly announced, “I’m in here. It’s really bad.” He calmly instructed emergency workers to retrieve his arms from the barn before taking him to the hospital. John was airlifted to a Minnesota hospital, En route, he joked that his arms, which had been packed in ice, felt cold.
Doctors were able to successfully reattach his arms. Over the years, John has had over 30 surgeries. While he does have movement in his arms, his hands are curled into permanent fists, making it difficult to button a shirt, shake hands or write legibly. However, he has no trouble slipping a pre-buttoned shirt over his head and maneuvering it down to his torso. He is partial to greeting people with a fist bump. And he has become a pretty accurate typist.
He doesn’t like to talk about the incident, despite the regular inquiries. He just tells people: “I had my arms ripped off. It’s just something that happened.”