An Ottawa farmer, who was critically injured in last month's tornado, is now walking and talking and anxious to get back on his tractor. It's been a long road to recovery for 78-year-old Leo Muldoon, after being blown off the roof of his barn. Muldoon was doing some repair work to the roof of his barn on Dunrobin Road September 21 when the tornado hit him from behind.Leo Muldoon still has a lot of recovering to do.  He was being moved today from the Ottawa Hospital to Elizabeth Bruyere for rehab. 

But both he and his wife consider it a miracle the feisty farmer survived the fall and the ensuing injuries.

Muldoon may have lost his barns in last month's tornado, but he certainly didn’t lose his sense of humor, joking that he’s “flying again,” as his wife Adele adjusts his hospital bed up.

“Are you comfortable?” she asks him.

Muldoon says he'll be most comfortable when he's back at home, back on the farm where there's a lot of work awaiting him.  There is little left of his barns after that powerful tornado ripped through Dunrobin, flattening houses, uprooting trees and destroying lives. 

Muldoon had been up on the roof of one of his barns that day, fixing a loose piece of tin when the tornado hit him from behind.

“Just turned to get on the ladder and the wind shot,” he says, “It took the ladder and me and threw me 25 meters away.”

Muldoon says he wasn't quite sure where he landed.

“I missed that part because I was flippity-flop.”

A neighbour found him in the barn, ran to get his wife Adele and called for an ambulance. When he was asked what was going on in his mind at that moment, he jokes, “that I was going to get a free ride.”

All joking aside, Muldoon was in rough shape with two collapsed lungs and 7 cracked ribs.

 “The night we came in,” says Adele Muldoon, “he was in critical condition and the doctors weren't sure how long he could survive.”

Adele credits hard work and the incredible medical care for mending her husband of 48 years. 

The first thing he wants to do when he gets back home?

“See if I can get into the tractor,” he says.

“It's amazing, it's simply amazing,” says Adele, “and he's amazing. And we're anxious to get home.”

It's expected Muldoon will be at Bruyere for a few weeks.  But, he's defied the odds before.  He's counting on getting out of there faster and mending where he's most comfortable; back on the farm.