Miraculous Survival Comes Down to Three Wires!

“Farming accidents have always been one of the main things that have scared me,” Kelly Griggs said as she recalled the tragic event that befell her husband. 

It was September 22nd, 2020, in Crockett County, Tennessee, when Kelly Griggs and her husband Matt, a fifth-generation farmer, had just completed the corn harvest for the season. They both left for their house separately, with Kelly being the first to arrive. But after a few minutes of not hearing or seeing Matt’s combine harvester coming up the road, she began to feel uneasy. 

“He was literally right behind me after I left the field,” Kelly said. “You can hear the combine two, three miles away, so it kind of made me worry.” 
 
Kelly was getting into her truck to go check on Matt when she received a phone call from her neighbor.

“'Miss Kelly, this is Noland, Matt's had an accident,'” Kelly remembered hearing when she answered the phone. “'He's hurt. He's really hurt.’ And that's when I basically floored it.”

Matt was only a couple minutes down the road from the house when his combine hit a rough spot causing it to bounce out of control. Not wearing a seatbelt, he was launched through the windscreen and landed hard on the pavement just feet from the 20-ton combine’s front tire. As Kelly came over the hill she caught her first glimpse of the combine’s wreckage and her mind went to a dark place.   

“I thought, he’s been run over,” Kelly said with fear in her eyes.

Meanwhile, Dr. Mike Revelle, Medical Director and Chief of Emergency Services for West Tennessee Healthcare, heard on his scanner that Matt had been ejected from the combine. A friend of Matt’s, Dr. Revelle immediately went to meet the ambulance at the hospital to see to him personally.

“I expected, based on the report from the EMS that he would be very injured,” Dr. Revelle said. “Once you're thrown from a vehicle all bets are off.”

As Matt was being evaluated by Dr. Revelle in the emergency room, Kelly was outside contacting as many people as possible and asking for prayer.

“I don’t know what it was, but there's like someone telling me to call my friends,” Kelly said. “My grandmother always taught me, ‘If you can't pray for yourself, then get others to pray for you because multiple voices are better than one.’"

Matt had a crushed vertebra, five broken ribs, and a severe concussion along with abrasions down his back. But what amazed Dr. Revelle was that Matt had no internal bleeding or other life-threatening trauma.

“You combine that sudden stop and being thrown through a windshield, bounced off a steering wheel, slammed onto the pavement, and then by the grace of God not run over by whatever you're in...absolutely surprised that his scan was clean as it was,” Dr. Revelle said in amazement.

Matt was discharged from the hospital the same day. It wasn’t until he got home and inspected his combine that Matt realized his miraculous survival came down to only three wires that kept him from being run over.

“Those three wires had been cut cleanly in half,” Matt said as he described his post-hospital discovery. “But the rest of the bundle was still intact. It should have still kept moving forward. There's no logical reason for just those three wires to be cut, but those three wires is what stopped the machine. Well, there's only one way to explain it – The Good Lord put his protective hand over me. God is the only thing that can break the laws of physics and stop 40,000 pounds moving at 22 miles an hour, in its tracks.”

Dr. Revelle also gives credit to God for Matt’s outcome.

“Well, you know, I think that's part of what faith is, you have to believe,” Dr. Revelle said. “And I see things every day that I can't put one and one together to make two that happened. But, you know, I think He had a hand in this. God blessed Matt to still be able to climb in and out of that cab and give those directions, just like he always has.”

It took several weeks of recovery before Matt was back on his feet and ready to get behind the wheel of his combine again. Both he and Kelly believe it was prayer and their trust in God’s protection that ultimately saved Matt. 

“I can't imagine anybody going through this experience without having faith,” Kelly said. “And I think the most powerful thing you can do is ask someone to pray for you.”

“It was an amazing experience to be able to feel the power of the prayer, the presence of the Lord,” Matt said with gratitude. “Every day I'm able to step out on this farm, I mean, it's a blessing. The accident showed me that life's short. You know, just try to be a little bit more easygoing and appreciate everything that God's given me.”