Keith Olson’s long road to recovery

It’s been a long recovery process for Keith Olson since he was seriously injured in a logging accident in early December.

Olson, a lifelong Quinault area resident who was a candidate for county commissioner last fall, has been a tree faller for the past 30 years. On Dec. 3, his left leg was run over by the tracks of a logging shovel and his femur, tibula, ankle and fibula were broken. Although he is lucky to be alive, he has been bedridden ever since and won’t be able to put any weight on his leg for another three weeks. He’s had surgeries that lasted eight hours and 16 hours.

Olson said he was branding logs, marking the ends with an identifying brand, as a logging shovel was loading the logs onto a logging truck. The shovel is like an excavator that runs on tracks like a tank. It has a long arm that is used to pick up the logs. While trying to get at a log to brand it, he moved into the shovel’s blind spot and his leg was run over by the machine.

“I couldn’t get out and it just kept going,” said Olson. “I was screaming and hollering but the shovels are noisy and I was on the operator’s blind side.”

The worker driving the machine didn’t notice he had caught Olson until the shovel had gone over his upper thigh, stopping near his groin area.

“I should’ve never been there. It was a dumb idea,” said Olson.

Olson was taken to Grays Harbor Community Hospital then sent to Harborview in Seattle where he had an eight-hour operation to set all the bones. After surgery, he was put into the intensive care unit where doctors cleaned out damaged soft tissue in his leg.

Two weeks later, doctors completed an even longer operation, this one about 16 hours, that took muscle tissue from Olson’s back to cover up what was lost on his leg during the accident. A staph infection prolonged his stay at Harborview. He was finally released from the hospital in late January.

“It’s good to be home,” said Olson. “Just getting back home is really good.”

A long road

Although Olson is happy to be home, his return only marks a new chapter in his recovery process. After his first surgery, Olson was told he needs to wait at least 12 weeks before he can put any weight on his left leg. For the time being he needs help getting in and out of the hospital bed that sits in his living room as well as going to the bathroom, taking showers and getting dressed.

When his wife, Heidi, is at work during the week, Olson’s daughter, Annie and son Andy take turns looking after him. Annie is a firefighter in Seattle and has taken off work in order to stay with her dad when Andy, who lives in Montesano, can’t. Andy’s coworkers have donated sick time so he can get off work to help his dad.

A little help

“It’s kind of a three-person rotation. Who gets stuck with me this week?” he says in jest. “I’m pretty well stuck on the bed until somebody’s here. I’m stuck until somebody can help me.”

Olson doesn’t know how long the recovery process will take, but said doctors are hopeful he regains most of the strength and functionality of his leg. Doctors said if all goes well, Olson could regain 75 or 80 percent use of his leg.

“That’s the best case scenario,” he said.

The 64-year-old Olson was a timber faller when he worked as a logger. Fallers do the actual cutting of trees and are responsible for making sure the trees fall safely before delimbing them and bucking them into pre-specified lengths. It is a job that requires a great amount of endurance and physical fitness and for Olson to have still been working in the industry at his age was a little unusual.

Even still, Olson said he had been discussing scouting out a new line of work given the physical toll it takes and the danger inherent within the business.

“This will speed that along,” jokes Olson referring to his injury.

Given the uncertainty of when he will fully recover and the stress that has come along with the healing process, he has been grateful for the help he has received, whether it comes from family members or others in the Grays Harbor community.

“I’ve gotten so much support and so many calls from all over Grays Harbor. It’s been really nice,” he said. “But my real support is right there,” said Olson nodding at Annie and referring to his family.