Friday hay auction proceeds to go to Big Sandy emergency health care

Big Sandy Volunteer Ambulance Service and Big Sandy Medical Center Emergency Room may have some extra funds coming their way thanks to a grateful local whose life and limb they saved this summer.

Shane Chauvet, a Big Sandy rancher, will be auctioning off about 23 round bales of hay Friday at 5:30 p.m. at First Bank of Montana in Big Sandy and all of the proceeds will be going to the organizations who saved him after a vehicle crash nearly cost him everything back in July.

"The emergency room and the ambulance crew saved my life," Chauvet said.

He said the accident nearly destroyed his arm and left him severely bleeding, and the emergency room in Big Sandy, and later the ambulance crew that took him to Great Falls for further treatment, are the only reason he's still breathing.

He said the accident was during a severe thunderstorm, and when his wife got him to the emergency room the staff flew into action in a coordinated effort to save him and prevent his arm from having to be amputated, which was a serious possibility for a while.

Chauvet said that after the emergency room staff stabilized his condition and found he needed care in Great Falls to save his arm, they realized they couldn't fly him out due to the storm, so they turned to the Big Sandy Volunteer Fire Department, which drove him all the way there, keeping him stable and hoping they would arrive in time to save his arm.

Chauvet's arm was saved. He's now awaiting further surgery and is in physical therapy, but had it not been for the emergency room and ambulance crew it would be so much worse.

"It's gonna be a long road," he said. "But the most important thing is I'm alive."

He said he wanted to extend his thanks to those people, many of whom he's known for years and never expected to end up saving his life.

He said he went to high school with the man who drove the ambulance and one of the ambulance crew was a woman he's sat behind in church for 24 years, and it was incredible to have his peers take care of him like that.

"These people have different jobs, and they dropped everything to help me when I was in a time of need," Chauvet said.

He said he wants to raise awareness of just how vital services like this are, especially in small communities like Big Sandy where so much of this work is done by volunteers, and he's glad he has an opportunity to give back.

Montana and the U.S. at large are in the midst of a severe hay shortage which has driven up prices significantly, and while that has made the lives of agriculture and livestock workers very difficult it has provided Chauvet an opportunity to make some money for a pair of vital local organizations.

"The hay market is crazy right now honestly," he said.

Locally, he said, between the severe drought that has gripped the area for months and a significant amount of hail damage, very little hay is being produced in the area, and he's hoping to bring in a fair amount of money for the emergency room and ambulance service, turning a bad situation into an opportunity to help a good cause.

Chauvet said he doesn't want to be the center of attention in all of this, but instead call attention to the people who volunteer their time to help others like him, something that is often taken for granted, himself included until recently.

"I've driven by (the emergency room) for years and never used it, I never thought they'd save my life," he said.