A man who was cut in half in a horror forklift accident told his family he wanted to survive even if he was just a "head on a plate."
Loren Schauers, 20, was operating the vehicle on a bridge when he fell 50ft, with the truck slicing off his arm and crushing his lower body in September 2019, the Mirror reports.
His family then had to make the unimaginable decision of whether to let doctors save him by amputating from his abdomen downwards - and risk Loren waking up to regret the choice.
However, when the construction worker came to and was asked the question himself, he looked medics "dead in the eye" and told them to go ahead with the lifesaving surgery.
Loren, from Great Falls in Montana, US, been living without his legs and right forearm for the last two years with the help of his devoted wife Sabia Reiche, 23.
The couple have shared aspects of their life on Youtube where they have built a massive following approaching half a million subscribers.
Sabia opened up about how doctors told the family the only way to save her boyfriend was to amputate everything below his belly button in a procedure known as a hemicorporectomy.
“We were all like super shocked and none of us knew how to react and none of us knew how Loren would react because he’s an 18 year old guy living life to the full," she told the Daily Star.
"And so there were fears in our heads that he wouldn’t want this surgery or would rather die than lose half of his body.
“But his sister really fought hard to let him make that decision."
The operation led to the removal of Loren's genitalia as his pelvis had been completely crushed.
Sabia explained that Loren's mum was his power of attorney prior to the operation and did not know what decision to make.
"She didn’t know whether to have the surgery done and for him to wake up and hate her for it or not have the surgery done and he die and her feel like she killed her son," she added.
"So his sister fought really hard for him to be taken off the breathing tube so he could make the decision.
"After a day or two after consultations and talking, they took him off it and he woke up and he kind of had an idea what was going on."
Sabia said Loren was aware that something terrible had happened to his body when he woke up in hospital.
The brave wife recalled how surgeons told him "you'll lose the lower half of your body or you may die in surgery".
She added: “From that moment, I knew he wasn’t going anywhere because he looked them dead in the eye and told them he didn’t care if he was just a head on a plate, they’re going to do the surgery and they’re going to keep him alive.
“That really brought a lot of hope for us, that he was a fighter, but we already knew that because he was still alive.”
Sabia has stayed by Loren's side after the nightmare accident and throughout his health difficulties.
She has to perform many day to day tasks for him, including changing his colostomy bags and showering him.
In an attempt to make life easier for them both, the couple are appealing for donations to fund a new bionic arm for Loren.
Sabia previously hit out at trolls who asked how the couple have sex and said the question was disrespectful.
"A question we get repeatedly is how do we have sex and how do we become intimate," she said.
"That is a very personal question that we are never going to answer or allude to as it's very disrespectful.
"You wouldn't ask a random couple on the street how they have sex and just because our life circumstances are different, it doesn't give people the right to ask."
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