Rodger Harms

Triumph Over Disability

By Don McCabe, Nebraska Farmer October 1998

Fate struck instantly for Rodger Harms on a cold, dark October night four years ago during corn harvest. As he reached into a combine, without aid of a flashlight, a pulley crushed his right hand. In searing pain, the 6-foot slender Kenesaw farmer, staggered to his grain truck a quarter-mile away, wondering if he could save the mangled hand, wondering if he'd ever farm again.

You and I can only imagine the trauma and frustration of coping with a physical disability. But coping with a disability while staying on the farm, even with changes in the operation, is a monumental endeavor. Harms is one Nebraska farmer persevering today in that endeavor. He is doing so, first of all, because of sheer tenacity and resolve. Yet, there's another factor. He has benefited from the assistance of Nebraska AgrAbility. Nebraska AgrAbility has benefited nearly 160 Nebraska farmers, ranchers and farm employees thus far.

Harms, through his own experiences, can best describe the assistance provided through AgrAbility. In haste and without a flashlight, Harms reached into the combine that late fall evening in 1994. The machine's clutch had gone out. While reaching in to check what he thought was a broken chain, Harm's right hand touched a belt which yanked the hand completely around the pulley. He walked a quarter-mile to his loaded grain truck and drove another half-mile to a neighbor who summoned help. Doctors removed four mangled fingers and much of his palm.

While neighbors finished his harvest that fall, Harms set about recovering. Learning to rely on his left hand was frustrating, but his positive outlook won out. "What is, is," Harms says matter-of-factly about his disability. "There was no reason to be depressed. Life goes on." That attitude was evident when he went back to work after only one month, minus most of his hand, with the construction company he co-owns in Kenesaw. The company's air-powered tools made it easier.

In February of 1995, doctors also removed his thumb and in April they fitted him with a prosthesis. Harms and his "farmer's hook," as he calls it, were again farming the 360 acres that spring, but there were many things he couldn't do with his left hand or with the prosthesis on his right, including making repairs on equipment, driving the grain truck, even making lunch when his wife, Janice, was at work in town. Enter AgrAbility. "Someone stopped by our State Fair booth in 1995 and told us about Rodger," says AgrAbility director Koehler who was just getting the Nebraska program off the ground. An AgrAbility representative visited Harms yet that harvest and inventoried changes he'd already made in equipment and tools. AgrAbility told him about other modifications disabled farmers from other states use. AgrAbility also referred Harms to a Voc Rehab counselor in Hastings. The biggest benefit of that contact was that Voc Rehab paid $4,000 to purchase special tools, including wrenches, sockets, a saw, files and punches, that all fit to an adapter on Harm's prosthesis. Before that, Harms had already purchased a special hammer that fits to the prosthesis and he also located an air-powered, one-handed grease gun. Ever that resourceful one, Harms traded in a three-wheeler ATV for a previously owned four-wheeler and had a dealership switch the throttle to the left handlebar and starter to the left side.

Harms, a tall, cheerful sort, turned 60 this fall. He's adapted enough to revive woodworking skills, including the building of a miniature oak table for his grandson. He credits his wife Janice for her support in the past four years and he's helping other disabled farmers as part of a group of 50 or so volunteer farmers who belong to the Nebraska AgrAbility Peer Network. "We exchange a lot of ideas with these farmers," Harms says.