A teenager has defied the odds by surviving a horrifying forklift truck accident that left him needing urgent surgery to amputate the bottom half of his body.
Loren Schauers, 19, was driving the industrial truck across a bridge when he veered off, plummeted 50ft and found himself pinned to the ground beneath the massive vehicle.
He remained totally conscious the entire time – and look down to see his right arm had exploded and everything below his hips was completely squashed.
The young labourer made the brave decision to let medics perform hemicorperectomy surgery – where everything below his waist was amputated – to save his life.
Doctors told his devastated girlfriend Sabia Reiche, now 21, he wouldn’t survive, and she said goodbye to him six times, fearing he wouldn’t live another day.
But miraculously he pulled through.
The pair had only been together for 18 months when the accident happened but said the turmoil brought them closer together, and they got engaged this year.
Loren, from Great Falls, Montana, said: ‘I was conscious throughout everything so I actually watched as the forklift fell on top of me and crushed my body.
‘Every medical professional I come across is pretty amazed by everything, especially with the story that comes along with my injuries.
‘It wasn’t a hard choice to have half of my body amputated – it was basically a choice of living or dying.
‘With Sabia assuring to stay by my side no matter what and all my immediate family being around me, it really wasn’t a hard choice for me!’
Loren was working as a labourer on a construction site during a bridge rehabilitation job in September 2019.
He suffered a pulmonary embolism – a blockage in his lung artery – and needed a breathing tube.
Schauers is pictured working on the bridge construction job before his accident
His lower body had been crushed in the accident and Loren made the brave decision to have hemicorperectomy surgery where everything below his waist was amputated.
Loren said: ‘They thought my lower extremities were still salvageable.
‘The doctors tied off my main veins down below and took scans of my body to see what state it was in there and they realized my pelvis had completely crumbled.
‘I was transferred to Seattle, Washington, by mercy flight where they first performed a surgery leaving my right hip, genitalia, and left thigh.
‘Once they had also seen the state of my pelvis, that’s where it was then deemed that I’d need a hemicorporectomy surgery.
‘They then tried saving my sperm with my consent but it turned out to not be viable.’
Doctors told Sabia and his family to say their goodbyes.
They ended up saying goodbye SIX times in the first month of his hospital stay before they realised that he stood a chance of making it through.
Sabia said: ‘There were many heartfelt, teary, sad conversations within the span of the first month of him being in hospital.
‘The first time we said goodbye was before his surgery but he still had his intubator in so he was writing to us as he couldn’t talk.
‘The night before his surgery, he wrote ‘I love you’ on a piece of paper as it could have been our last night together. I still have that piece of paper today.
‘There were plenty of times that the doctors told us that he was probably going to die, so we had these really long ‘I love you’ and everything like that conversations.
‘The doctors would say he was going to die, we’d have a goodbye conversation and then he wouldn’t die.
‘It sucked, to put it blatantly, we hated it. His health was teasing us, like ‘haha we’re fine now but going to die soon so you’ll all be sad’, but then he lived.’
One month after his accident, Loren was transferred to a hospital back in Montana so family could visit, because doctors still believed he would die.
But his health started to improve at an incredible speed.
Schauers is pictured with girlfriend Reiche after the operation
Doctors had believed that he would be in hospital for at least a year and a half but he stayed for three months, before four weeks rehab, and then he was home.
Loren has taught himself how to put on his ‘bucket’ prosthetic and get into his wheelchair without any help.
Sabia said: ‘Throughout it all, Loren has been super innovative in order to make himself as independent as possible.
That he didn’t die is a miracle ?
What?!!!