This Is Iowa: Iowa pig farmer gives back to those who helped him recover
Give many Iowans a grill and a flame and they’ll light it up, toss on some burgers and dream of the first bite.
Greg Carlson is more focused on the fact he can actually man the grill at all. Because a year and a half ago, this Hamilton County hog farmer proudly wearing "Pork" on his shirt could not flip a burger or even speak.
Carlson was riding his motorcycle just east of Roland when he collided with a deer.
"I didn't hit the deer. The deer hit me, I think," Carlson said. "But I don't remember any of it. So then I got a helicopter ride to Des Moines from there.”
Carlson's traumatic brain injury after he flipped over his windshield and landed on the highway had everyone worried.
“I'm just going by what I hear from my wife because I don't remember,” he said. “She said the first seven to 10 days I was very, very, very critical.”
So bad that even when he strung two words together several days later – “I’m OK” – his eyes stayed closed.
For 31 days, he didn’t leave his hospital bed. He doesn’t remember anything that first month. So as bones healed, they loaded up the hog farmer for an ambulance ride to the brain injury experts at On With Live in Ankeny.
“Physically, he still needed a lot of help with everyday tasks,” occupational therapist Amy Andreesen said.
Therapists say it’s what they typically see in people who’ve had brain injuries. But on just his second day there, they told Greg to stand up.
For some reason, it worked. And so did Carlson's memory.
“How fast he went from not remembering anything to walking and then quickly ditching the cane,” physical therapist assistant Matthew Poots said.
In just a few weeks, they were testing his balance while tossing him tennis balls.
“Every day then, he kept progressing,” Poots said.
So they took the farmer out back, past their pig statue, to the ag therapy area for a lesson in walking on uneven surfaces, climbing on livestock gates like he used to back on the farm, and getting himself up onto a tractor, which was hard.
“Because your balance is screwed up – traumatic brain injury – and then being off my feet for 31 days,” Carlson said.
The point, just like the facility’s name, was to get Carlson on with life.
“Just like relearning to ride a bicycle. You gotta do it again,” Carlson said.
To make sure Carlson was ready for everyday mental tasks, they asked him to make a shopping list and then prove he could do it.
“Hey, let’s go to the grocery store. If you grilled at home and made pork burgers for your family, let’s do it here,” Andreesen said.
“So we got to the Fairway Store here in Ankeny and she gave me a $20 bill and said, ‘You gotta go buy this and make sure that $20 bill will be enough,’” Carlson said.
Just a few weeks after he stood up from his hospital bed for the first time in a month, he was doing math in the grocery store aisle.
“Traumatic brain injuries cause cognitive problems. So they were testing me. See if I can remember what you have to have to cook,” he said.
And then, as his final test, he stood on his own and grilled the product he’d raised all his life for his therapists. Focusing on the only explanation he could come up with for his incredible four-week turnaround – “God’s miracles.”
So, 18 months later, with gratitude overflowing: “Yep, I’m a lucky guy.”
Carlson decided to take his thank you up a notch.
The Hamilton County hog farmer asked his friends at the Pork Producers to fire up their biggest grill so he could flip enough burgers to thank everyone in the building.
Between batches, Carlson climbed back on his balance ball and showed off how he can tackle stairs without a problem. And that fence out back? It’s a daily reminder on the farm of how far he’s come.
But when he saw wheelchairs rolling into the lunchroom, and others overcoming brain injuries, stand up like he did and walk toward the pork lunch waiting for them, it sank in. Just like it did for Carlson's therapists.
“You know, working here long enough, that there are some that don't turn out that way,” Poots said. “So those really special ones, they hold a special place in your heart.”
“It’s people like Greg that keeps me coming to work and keeps me motivated to get them better and get them on with their life,” Andreesen said.
Recovery is uncertain and every journey is different, but when it ends with so much success, and you can say thank you while encouraging others?
It’s just plain sweet.