Oregon farmer Jeff Smith has two reasons to live -- his teenage daughters, Hannah and Haylee.
And they're the reasons he's alive today. They managed to pull a 3,000-pound tractor off his chest and saved his life last Monday.
Smith, of Lebanon, was trying to pull a stump out of his garden with his tractor when his muddy boot slipped off the clutch, causing the tractor to flip. The steering wheel pinned his chest to the ground, NBCNews.com reported.
He screamed for help and, luckily, Hannah, 16, and 14-year-old Haylee heard his cries. Somehow the two lifted the machine up enough to give him breathing room.
“It’s amazing. You hear about this kind of stuff… this adrenaline rush, being able to pick cars up and slide people out. You never realize it’s really there until you actually witness it,” Jeff told KGW-TV. “I was very amazed and very grateful they were able to do that.”
Hannah remains shocked by her sudden feat of strength.
“I just can’t believe it happened, honestly. We were supposed to go to a friend’s house. I don’t know why we didn’t," she told the Albany Democrat-Herald newspaper.
She really felt it the next day, she added.
“I felt like an 80-year-old getting out of bed,” she said.
A neighbor finished the job by using his own tractor and its shovel to lift the Smith's tractor and allow Smith to get his arm out.
Smith suffered a broken left wrist, cuts, and bruises, but came away with a deep love and respect for his daughters, KTVB-TV reported.
The tractor is also OK, but now has a new nickname: "Satan," according to NBC News.
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