Grandpa and Grandma Velin shortly before Gust’s death in 1985.
As a little girl, I observed that my Grandpa Gust had a damaged eye. I was told the story of his accident many times — how he had almost died, but a talented brain surgeon saved his life. However, I never knew the full story … until now.
I am a 4th-generation Jehovah’s Witness (hereafter JW) on my father’s side of the family. I was raised to believe that blood was not only sacred but that God forbade its use in medicine, even to save lives. Anyone in my family would have chosen death over accepting a blood transfusion. I would have chosen death. However, I started questioning the tenets of my faith in 2016, and I finally left the religion in 2020. The “Mandated Shunning” policy of JW’s meant I lost contact with all active JW family members and friends.
Monica Velin Rodriguez. Granddaughter of Gust Velin and 4th-generation former JW. Stop Mandated Shunning Activist.
This was traumatic and painful. However, I determined to reach out to any non-JW relatives to maintain a sense of connection to my family. One of the people I contacted after decades of silence was my dad’s cousin David. In speaking with David, I gained an entirely new perspective on the story of my grandfather’s injury. I was shocked and deeply moved to discover that a blood transfusion had saved Grandpa Gust’s life. No one had ever told me this.
My grandfather, Gust Velin, was a talented master carpenter with extensive concrete experience, including building bridges and making “slip-form” cylindrical grain elevators.
The High Bridge (Blatnik Bridge) crossing the harbor between Superior, WI and Duluth, MN was constructed between 1958-61. Gust Velin was superintendent of the project.
He managed projects in Wisconsin, Minnesota, Michigan & Indiana. It was hard work back in the 40’s, 50’s and 60’s, when the concrete had to be lifted in buckets via a swinging cable crane, transferred to wheelbarrows on an elevated platform, and poured into forms one small load at a time.
My grandfather sometimes invited his nephew, David Ekroth, to work with him and gain experience. Unlike much of the family, David was not one of JW’s. In the summer of 1963, as a young man in his early 20’s, David was invited by my Grandpa Gust to work on a 4-cylinder grain elevator project in Saginaw, Michigan.
Tragically, early in construction, a bucket-lifting crane fell over and hit my grandfather on the head. He was rendered unconscious and started bleeding profusely. Someone called emergency services, and the ambulance came to take Gust to the hospital. David was allowed to ride along. He doubted his uncle would survive.
Grain elevators in Shakopee, MN that Gust Velin worked on.
By an amazing coincidence, a brain surgeon was at the hospital upon Gust’s arrival. David had collected my grandfather’s wallet during the ambulance ride, and he discovered Gust’s DPA (“No Blood”) card. He was disturbed and was contemplating what to do when a doctor approached him. The doctor said that Gust would need a blood transfusion, or he would not survive. An immediate decision had to be made, and David was the only relative present. David told the doctor to “Do whatever is necessary.” He loved his uncle very much, and wasn’t about to let him die. He determined that, if he was questioned about it by JW relatives, he could deny having seen the card.
That moment of questioning did come. One of my aunts was furious about the fact that David had allowed the transfusion to be administered to her father. But David was proud of what he’d done and told her she must never complain about it again!
Gust was hospitalized for over a month before returning home. At first, he didn’t recognize his two younger children. My aunt recalls that it was nearly a year before Gust called her and my father by their names.
Thankfully, my grandfather survived — and he lived another 22 years. My father was only 12 years old at the time of the accident. So my cousin David’s heroic act meant that my dad didn’t lose his father during childhood and that I was able to know my grandfather. In 1963, only one of Gust’s grandchildren had been born, so all of us (12 grandchildren & 7 great-grandchildren) owe David a debt of gratitude. But no one will thank him except for myself, my youngest brother, and one cousin, because we are the only ones who have left the religion and have discovered the full story. Our other siblings and cousins have no idea that our grandfather’s life was saved by a blood transfusion.
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