A Near Death Experience

On this farm there was an artesian well. The water from this well came out of the ground at about 125 degrees .It smelled like rotten eggs (sulfur) and tasted terrible. The well had a 4 inch fire hose attached to it and the gate valve wheel was about three feet in diameter. When just barely turned on it produced well over 150 gallons per minute.

Also on the farm was a large collection of old unused farm implements. One of these was an old combine.
I do not know if you are familiar with a combine or not but it has three levels of steel chainlike belts that move the grain through the machine. On these chains there are fingers of steel which point up from the chain belt. So on the lower level the fingers are all pointing up and the fingers on the middle chain are pointing down. The space between the chains is about a foot and a half.

One fine day we children were playing hide and seek. Janice was it. I decided I would hide in the space between the chains. I did not realize my sweet wife of the future was peeking and saw me hide.

She dragged the hose from the well over to the combine and put it in a hole in the top of the machine. She then went back to the gate valve and tried to turn it on. She could not move it so she got a long pipe and using it as a lever she turned it full on thinking it would be funny to get me wet.

Well not only did she get me wet I got hung up between the teeth on the chains and could not get out. The machine was filling very rapidly and I knew I was in deep do do. I began to holler help. She began to laugh. I began to gurgle and gag as the water covered me completely.

I was just on the edge of loosing consciousness when her brother managed to open a door on the bottom of the machine. The water rushed out and took me with it. That is as close to drowning as I ever want to get.

Makes you wonder why I ever married her don’t it. I think she had me under total control. Even then!