Tractor ran him over, broke many bones

By Kelly Smith

Eagle correspondent

OAKLAND TWP — It was just another day for Pete Nobles.

On Dec. 17, Nobles began to do the chores at his Clay Township farm, starting the tractor so it could run while he completed his tasks.

But as he climbed off the tractor, his clothing snagged on the controls and kicked the machine into gear. Nobles dangled alongside and then fell, a large tire running over his legs and torso.

“So we went for a ride,” he said.

Less than two months later, on Feb. 8, Nobles walked into Sunday services at Faith Fellowship Alliance Church, 200 Faith Way.

Nobles, 79, said he believes God was with him and helped him make it through the accident.

“God was in it from the beginning,” he said.

Nobles laughed when asked to recall the incident.

“I’ve told this story so many times,” he said, settling into a chair in an office at the church on a recent snowy morning.

After taking his grandson to work, Nobles went out to do his chores, starting the farm’s smallest tractor, which weighs 6,800 pounds, but has an additional 2,300 pounds of wheel weights added.

As he got off the tractor in front of the left wheel, his jacket or overalls caught on the controls and the machine began to move.

“I saw I couldn’t hold on. I didn’t have anything to hold on to,” he recalled. “If it got my head, I would have had it.”

After he fell from the tractor, Nobles, who never lost consciousness, said he lay for a while on the barn floor, listening to the traffic on the nearby road, wondering if anyone would stop.

The tractor broke through the barn door and came to rest on its side, wheels still spinning, just outside the barn.

Frank McCall and his wife, Dreama, were on their way to a doctor’s appointment in Grove City when they noticed the tractor and the broken door.

McCall said they pulled over and made their way to the barn. While Frank McCall looked around the tractor to see if anyone had been pinned beneath, Dreama McCall saw Pete Nobles laying on the floor of the barn.

The couple, who both belong to the West Sunbury Fire Department, began evaluating Nobles and assessing his injuries, Frank McCall said.

“For the amount of injuries Pete sustained, it was unbelievable he could talk with no trouble at all,” Frank McCall said.

When Alice Nobles heard of the accident, she was sure her husband would be all right.

“There were no doubts in my mind that I knew he was going to be fine,” she said.

Pete Nobles said they usually put chains on the wheels of that particular tractor around Thanksgiving, using it for a snowplow in the winter. By December, they hadn’t gotten it done yet.

“Thank the Lord for procrastinating,” he said. “It would have tore me all to pieces.”

Nobles had a laundry list of broken bones including his ribs, collarbone, pelvis, hip, tailbone and leg, as well as a punctured lung and four broken vertebrae in his neck.

Doctors at UPMC told the Nobles that Pete was lucky to be alive.

‘“He said there’s just too many (broken bones) to count,”’ Nobles recalled the doctor telling him. “He said, ‘The Lord was with you.’”

Nobles stayed at UPMC and then Sunnyview and returned home Jan. 22, first using a wheelchair, then a walker and finally now, a cane. The only visible sign of his injuries is a slight limp.

The Rev. Dick Jenks of the Faith Fellowship Alliance Church said it’s hard to describe the feeling he had when he saw Pete Nobles walk into services but said he wasn’t surprised.

“I thoroughly expected him to do this,” he said. “He is a man of great faith. It was really amazing.”

Jenks said Nobles is a fixture at the church for 28 years and always has a hug or word of encouragement for others.

“He’s one of those guys that you’re so glad to have him in church and so glad to have him as a friend,” he said.

Bob Rugaber, one of the parishioners, was stunned by Nobles’ walk into church, calling it a “miracle.”

“I was absolutely blown away,” he said.

Rugaber, a former Butler County agricultural agent, said when he first heard the news, he thought his friend would die.

“It’s really one that makes you say, ‘There is a God and he was there,’” he said.