Lane Unhjem was in the middle of harvest near Crosby, North Dakota, when one of his combines caught fire. He fought to put the flames out himself. The strain triggered a massive heart attack, and he went into cardiac arrest right there in the field.

A Fire in the Middle of Harvest

Unhjem, a 57-year-old farmer in Divide County, was airlifted to Trinity Health in Minot. His crop, about 1,000 acres of durum wheat and canola, was still standing in the field. Harvest season doesn't wait, and with Unhjem in intensive care, there was no one left to bring it in.

Sixty Neighbors, One Afternoon

A family friend, Jenna Binde, started making calls the same day Unhjem was flown out. She told CBS News she barely had to convince anyone. Within two hours, more than half the equipment and drivers she needed were already lined up.

On September 12, 2020, roughly 60 farmers from across the county showed up at the Unhjem farm. They brought 11 combines, 6 grain carts and 15 semi-trucks. Working in a rolling line across the fields, they cut, hauled and stored the entire crop, about 15,000 bushels of canola and 35,000 bushels of durum, in roughly seven hours.

Photographers Don Anderson and Rodney Olin captured the combines moving across the field in formation, images that spread across the country as the story made national news.

A Long Road Back

While his neighbors worked his fields, Unhjem's own condition worsened. His kidneys and liver began to fail from the shock of the heart attack and the CPR that followed, and he needed dialysis and was treated for pneumonia. He was later moved to a hospital in Minnesota for specialized care.

Doctors eventually placed him on the transplant list for both a new heart and a new kidney. In late November 2020, a donor match was found for both organs. Unhjem underwent heart transplant surgery one evening, and doctors performed his kidney transplant the following morning, Thanksgiving Day.

Coming Home

After 108 days in the hospital, Unhjem was released to continue his recovery at home with his family. The community wasn't finished helping either. A week after the harvest bee, another group of volunteers came back to bring in his soybeans, and neighbors later held a pancake breakfast and silent auction that raised thousands of dollars for the family.

"Everybody knows the Unhjems, and they're good people," Binde told reporters. "You help your neighbor out when they need it, and don't expect anything in return."

Related Tags