BRANCH IMPALES ATV RIDER'S LEG IN FREAK ACCIDENT

One minute you're carefree, driving an ATV down a gravel road on a sunny day. The next thing you know, people are using a chain saw to make you fit into a waiting ambulance.

Driving a friend's ATV outside Zalma Thursday afternoon, Michael Jansen turned his head for a moment and when he turned back to the road ran over a downed tree branch. Five feet long and two inches in diameter, the branch rode a front wheel up into the 19-year-old's right shin, impaling it.

Jansen had to break off one end of the branch just to get off the four-wheeler. The rest was still sticking out of the other side of his leg. Fortunately, two friends were there to summon help, and he didn't lose much blood. Jansen spent the next hour waiting for an ambulance and throwing rocks at the four-wheeler's tire.

The hardest part of the ordeal occurred when the ambulance. The paramedics couldn't get him inside because the branch sticking out of his leg was too long. Jansen's grandfather and another man had to cut 3 more feet off.

"He said it didn't hurt until they started cutting on it with the chain saw," Jansen's brother, Matt, said Friday. Michael was in understandably severe pain Friday but able to relate some details of the accident through Matt.

At St. Francis Medical Center, Dr. Raymond A. Ritter Jr. removed the rest of the branch from Jansen's leg in an hour-and-a-half-long operation. Amazingly, the puncture didn't wreak much damage, and he has been told his injuries should heal well. "The doctor said it was a miracle that it didn't hit bone or major arteries," says Matt.

"They said he's lucky," Matt continued. "Otherwise he'd have been in bad shape."

Michael is scheduled to undergo another operation on the knee today. "They're supposed to go back in and clean it out and sew it back up," Matt said.

Jansen was riding an ATV instead of working Thursday because he is mending from a motorcycle accident that occurred three weeks ago. In that one, he caught his leg on a stump and tore ligaments in his left knee. He has been unable to do his job as a union carpenter since then.

Matt said Michael is rethinking his leisure-time pursuits.

"I think he's getting rid of the motorcycle."

Lt. Michael Pulliam of the Missouri Highway Patrol in Poplar Bluff said he has never heard of a similar accident. Most injuries involving ATVs are due to lack of a helmet, driving without adult supervision or underestimating an ATV's instability.

"So many accidents occur because they're trying to exceed the limitations of the ATV itself or human limitations," he said.

Sam Blackwell may be contacted at 335-661 ext. 182 or by e-mail at sblackwell@semissourian.com.