ABOVE: Several haulers line up to take crops away as combines harvest for Mark Lenort. A total of 18 haulers and three combines harvested 75 acres in five hours last Sunday. Overall, over 100 people helped Lenort harvest his crops through the month of October. Submitted photo.

FAIRMONT – It was meant to be a planned six-hour surgery for a heart defect undetected since birth. Instead, Fairmont Farmer Mark Lenort underwent a 14-hour surgery that landed him in the hospital for two months.

Lenort said they had performed a CT scan, ultrasound, MRI and angiogram, but none of these tests detected the calcification that doctors found when surgery was already underway. What was meant to be a few days of recovery ended up being 62.

“I ended up in a five-day coma because they couldn’t close me up because I was retaining 23 liters of fluid, and they had to wait for me to go down a little bit, to close me up,” Lenort said. “When I was in a coma, they found out I was allergic to a real common medicine, which they’d never had in Rochester before at St. Mary’s, and they couldn’t get me to wake up.”

Lenort was in the ICU for 29 days, had several days where he could not move due to weakness from surgery recovery and had to communicate with his daughters using blinks for a week.

In the meantime, Lenort’s daughter, Nicole Lenort, managed his phone and said the response from people was immediate.

“Even before harvest, my dad had a really big surgery and had a long recovery ahead,” she said. “People right away asked me what they can help with.”

Lenort manages 1,000 acres of farmland just south of Fairmont, a portion of which is rented out. He grows soybeans, alfalfa, sweet corn and peas. Due to the complications from surgery, Lenort now had hundreds of acres of soybeans and sweet corn he could not get out himself.

ABOVE: Mark Lenort is surrounded by his daughters Nicole and Courtney, and his wife, Mary, in St. Mary’s Hospital, where he spent two months recovering from heart surgery. Submitted photo.

It started with family members and friends, around the first of October, taking out what they could every day. Over three sessions in October, the soybeans were all taken out, but the corn still remained. It was last Sunday, Oct. 26 that family friend Robin Celander said the community came out in full force for Lenort.

“I came over here Sunday morning to sit down and see how Mark was doing,” he said. “For the most part, everybody, all the neighbors, were done around us. This neighborhood in the past has been very good about helping other farmers. It’s always been that way, and I just felt it was time that we could get over here and help them get done.”

It started in the morning with four trucks, then an extra combine was brought. As word spread to more and more people, a total of 18 trucks and three combines got 75 acres of corn out in five hours. All in all, over 100 people came to the aid of Mark Lenort in October to help harvest all of his crops.

Seeing the outreach of everyone to help him in a trying time is something Lenort said is really emotional, looking back to how farming used to be.

“You’re used to doing stuff yourself,” he said. “You don’t rely on other people to help you. Back in the day, they used to thrash machines. The neighbors would get together, and they all help out. They go to your place one day, Robin’s one day, Terry’s one day. Back in the day, it used to be a community event to help each other out, but now you can kind of do everything yourself.”

Looking forward, Lenort is undergoing dialysis and physical therapy. He hasn’t started cardiac therapy yet due to his body not being strong enough for that, but when he can, that will be next. Lenort said he hopes to be ready to lead everything again by the spring.

Family Friend Terry Larson said the work will get done for Lenort when he needs it, but having him back and recovering means everything to them.

“I was lost when Mark was sick because my phone quit ringing,” Larson said. “I missed his phone calls anywhere from one to 10 a day, 10 on a busy day when I’m here. He called every day, and my phone quit ringing, and I was pretty lost, because I talked to him about everything.”