APLINGTON - Byron Johnson doesn't remember the accident. Nor the weeks leading up to the late afternoon in November when the semi he was driving was hit by a train.

With bins full at home last fall, Johnson, 41, was hauling the last few bushels to the Sinclair Elevator east of Parkersburg. He failed to stop at a railroad crossing on Sinclair Avenue.

An eastbound locomotive plowed into the passenger-side of his truck, shredding the cab and sending pieces of broken metal into an adjacent ditch and creek. Johnson landed in a sitting position in the water, his head propped up by a rock.

He hates to think he made a mistake.

"I've been driving for 30 years, and I never had an accident. I can't believe I'd fall asleep."

Employees from the elevator carried Johnson to the side of the road, where a helicopter airlifted him to Covenant Medical Center in Waterloo. He was later flown to University of Iowa Hospitals and Clinics in Iowa City.

Doctors' initial concern focused on Johnson's traumatic brain injury, his wife, DeAnn, said.

"It was very grim," she remembers.

Surgeons removed a blood clot and the left side of Johnson's skull to relieve pressure and allow his brain to swell. The 10-hour operation concluded about 6:30 a.m. Thanksgiving Day. He spent a month in intensive care.

Today, after numerous surgeries and months of therapy, Johnson continues to make strides toward recovery. Most recently, he got a prosthetic shell for his right eye, and he finished occupational and speech therapy at Covenant. He hopes to drive a tractor after July 16, six months from his last seizure.

"Quite some case," said Dr. Joseph Nora, who works with physical medicine and rehabilitation at Covenant. "Usually if you get hit by a train, you're dead."

Harvest

Johnson and his brother, Leon, raise crops and operate Johnson Swine north of Aplington. At the time of the accident, they were in the middle of harvest.

"Every farmer knows it's just that time of the year when it's very busy, so I know that he was extremely tired," DeAnn said.

They also were having issues with grain handling equipment, and one night Johnson fell asleep in his pickup while supervising the system. He wanted to make sure a grain dryer was empty and things were ready to go the next day, DeAnn recalled.

On the afternoon of Nov. 26, Johnson set off with his first load to the elevator. Initially, one of the couple's sons, Landon, 9, planned to ride along.

Their other son, Alex, 13, took DeAnn's place field cultivating when she got a call from a family member. A few minutes later, she pulled up to Sinclair as the helicopter took off.

"This lady - I call her my angel - came up to me and said she'd come upon the accident and threw her coat over him to keep him warm," DeAnn said.

The woman told DeAnn that as paramedics loaded her husband, he was moving his arms and legs.

"It was a huge relief."

Johnson doesn't know or remember why he didn't stop at the intersection, which has lighted signals. He may have been distracted by a separate accident up the road at the intersection of Sinclair Avenue and Iowa Highway 57 where a cement truck collided with a semi.

Johnson speculates about a possible mechanical failure on his semi.

"He said to me a few times the brakes must have went out or it must have been a problem with the truck," DeAnn added. "He just doesn't think how you couldn't see a train."

Recovery

Johnson had a broken vertebrae in his neck and three torn ligaments in his left knee. His nose was split open, and his right eye cut in half. In the hours after the accident, Johnson suffered a stroke, damaging a main artery that supplies blood and oxygen to the brain.

During the past eight months, physicians fused the fractured vertebrae and reconstructed his knee with cadaver ligaments, tendons and tissue grafts. Surgeons also inserted a titanium plate to replace the missing portion of his skull.

DeAnn has several journals documenting Johnson's injuries and progress: He spent 76 days in the hospital, 27 in Iowa City and 49 at in Waterloo.

Dr. Nora said Johnson's recovery is ahead of schedule and his strength and endurance are vastly improved. He relearned how to speak, walk and drive. Johnson's stroke and blindness in one eye contributed to shaky coordination and balance.

"I remember the first day when he sat up on the side of the bed, it was almost like he was one of those Weeble Wobbles," DeAnn said.

Johnson will continue rehab for his knee for up to a year through Covenant at the Kimball Ridge center. The best form of therapy, though, came when Johnson hopped in a tractor and spent a few days in the field.

"I was excited. I knew how to run it right away, too," he said.

Other goals have further propelled Johnson's remarkable improvement.

"I hope to play basketball with the old guys again and my boys," he said. "And hopefully get back into golf league. I was a pretty good water skier. I don't know if I'll get that done, though."

They family also will look for new activities to suit his abilities, DeAnn said.

"God has just provided miracle after miracle," she said. "It's going to be a happy ending."