Doctors at the Dartmouth-Hitchcock Medical Center are treating a 77-year-old Vermont man who spent two nights trapped beneath a large beech tree after a logging accident left him immobilized and injured.
Edward Austin had been cutting trees for firewood last Thursday in the woods of his secluded farm in Shaftsbury, Vt. Austin's friend and neighbor, 62-year-old William Hardy, found Austin stuck beneath the tree while walking his dog Saturday morning.
As they passed the Austin farm, Hardy's Airedale Terrier started barking and rushed into a nearby wooded area. Following his hunting dog, Hardy found the unresponsive Austin lying facedown with the tree pinning down his legs.
Hardy used his cell phone to call the state police at 10:30 a.m, according to police reports. Shaftsbury firemen freed Austin from the tree and transported him to the Southwestern Vermont Medical Center to be treated for exposure and minor injuries. After being diagnosed, the farmer was transferred to the DHMC, where he remains in critical condition. He is conscious but suffering from post-dehydration kidney problems, according to Hardy.
Austin has lived and worked alone on the farm for many years, though his family and others have taken over much of the work since 1997, when a tractor tipped onto Austin in a previous farming accident. Logging is one chore that, to the chagrin of his family, Austin has insisted on maintaining himself, Hardy said.
Hardy often walks his dog on the property and had planned to buy a pumpkin from the Austin farm on Saturday.
"When we got out there, my dog could tell something was wrong and I saw that his tractor was just sitting out in the field," said Austin, who speculated that another tree limb had probably caused the beech to fall about six feet off its mark.
"Maybe a younger man could have got out of the way faster, but it wouldn't have been easy," Hardy said.
Austin's neighbor, Scott Bernard, said that Ed was a nice man who deserved to be saved. "It was a miracle he was found," Bernard said.
Hardy shrugged at the suggestion that he had made a heroic rescue.
"People came by Ed's farm all the time, either to work, visit or walk. It was rare that several days would pass without someone coming by, but that's what happened," he said. "It might be a miracle that I found him, but it would be a better miracle if I found him a day earlier."
