Two benefits are lined up this weekend to help out Shane Bailey, 24.
“We are having a benefit ranch rodeo, because a month or so ago, Shane was working in a hay field for his mom and dad, running a combine. Something happened to the combine, and it would not do what it was supposed to do,” said Terri Priest, co-organizer of the Friday benefit. “He gets out and he tries to do whatever he needs to do to dump the feed out of the combine, and when he did, his left hand got caught between a belt and a pulley and burnt his hand really bad.”
Shane’s father, Jim, was also in the field and came to help his son. Jim raced Shane to the hospital in Joplin, but before they arrived, their truck broke down. Eventually someone stopped and helped get them to the hospital. After evaluating Shane, he was sent to the burn unit at St. John’s in Springfield.
“The first thing that we heard was that Shane was going to lose his pinkie on his left hand,” Priest said. “Shane is a cowboy, he ropes, rides, he has a ton of cattle that he checks and takes care of for different people. He is also my horse shoer.”
But the prognosis changed.
“In the meantime, we were all thinking, ‘OK this is not so bad, he is going to lose his pinkie and this is it,’” she said. “They take him in for surgery…when the doctors got into surgery, they found out that the heat had gotten so extreme that it melted the bone in his hand. They had to amputate all of his fingers on his left hand (except for the thumb).”
Priest and her husband, Melvin, decided to hold a benefit on Friday to help raise funds for Shane. The rodeo will start at 6 p.m., and a live auction will be at 8 p.m. There will also be a free ham and beans dinner and the only thing that will cost is the hamburgers, soda pop and water.
Directions to Friday’s event - watch for signs - are as follows: coming out of Fairview on Highway 86, go toward Wheaton. Priest said take Highway W, go one mile on Highway W to Farm Road 1015, turn left on Farm Road 1015, then you will go to the next crossroads and that is Farm Road 2117. Saturday’s event will be located three miles north of Wheaton – on Hwy. 86, is being put on by Chris and Lana Ray. For more information, call Melvin or Terri Priest at 652-3297 or call 846-3037.
