Loren Schauers was 18 years old when he was involved in a horrific accident which changed his life forever.

He was working as a labourer in Montana in September 2019 when the forklift he’d been behind the wheel of veered off a bridge and plummeted 50ft to the ground.

The 18-year-old ended up pinned beneath the forklift and gave permission for everything below his waist to be amputated as it was a choice between that and dying.

He was ‘conscious throughout everything’ during the horrific accident where it crushed his pelvis and right arm, meaning he was well aware of the forklift falling on him and crushing his body and the agonising ’10, 15 minute’ wait while his co-workers tried to get the forklift off him.

In the end he had to have three of his limbs amputated.

When he was 18 Loren Schauers was cut in half by a forklift. (YouTube/SabiaandLoren)

Since then Loren has spoken out several times about the impact being cut in half by a forklift has had on his life, including finding it difficult to make friends and discovering that many of his former friends weren’t all that willing to stick with him.

In a YouTube channel he runs with his wife Sabia, Loren has provided a number of updates on his life and let people see what he gets up to.

His most recent video reflected on it being five years since he was cut in half by the forklift, and in it he explained that his pain was becoming more manageable.

Loren explained that the rehab techniques he’d been taught by doctors had helped ‘erase the phantom pain’ over the years.

He said: “My pain is definitely more under control now, my health is a little wild and out of control.”

Continuing his update, he told his viewers: “Five years later pain’s under control, life is finally managed in a way that we can control it now.

“I don’t know how to explain it, it’s not as epic, things aren’t like bombs dropping on us any more. We kind of know what to expect with certain things, and can kind of tell what’s gonna happen.

“Me and Sabia are doing great. We don’t get out much. We went to Lollapalooza in Chicago and had a great time obviously.”

Loren said that when at home ‘she’s reading her books, I’m watching my TV shows’ and that ‘we’re just existing’.

Sabia joined him for much of the rest of the episode as they answered a plethora of popular questions on their life together.

A man who was cut in half by a forklift truck in 2019 has revealed a heartbreaking aspect about his life following the devastating accident.

Loren Schauers narrowly avoided a grisly death when the forklift he was driving veered off a bridge in the US and plummeted 50ft down to the ground.

Pinned beneath the vehicle, Loren gave his permission for hemicorporectomy surgery to be carried out – which meant the amputation of everything below the waist – saying it was ‘basically a choice of living or dying’.

He also lost his right arm in the horrific accident, and his condition was so severe that his wife Sabia was told he wouldn’t survive and said her goodbyes to him a total of six times.

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Horrifyingly, Loren revealed he had been ‘conscious throughout everything’, including the moment the forklift fell on him.

Since his accident and beating the odds by surviving, he’s been keeping people posted on how he’s doing with his life thanks to regular updates on social media and YouTube.

In his videos, he’s shown how he showers and elsewhere, he’s explained how he handles trips to the bathroom with no lower half of the body.

However, in a recent update, Loren posted about something saddening as he took to Facebook asking if anyone else found it difficult to make friends.

He wrote: “Am I the only one who finds it difficult to make friends? I’m never really busy doing anything, just don’t know who to hit up and let into my life.

“Also, been betrayed by so many ‘friends’ in so many ways that I might have trust issues letting people into my life, not stealing from me, taking advantage of whatever they can, stuff like that.

“I know it’s dumb to make it out into a Facebook post but hey! If anyone is looking for a friend! I’m always free and need to mend some friends.

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“Haven’t hung out with anyone that isn’t family in over a year it feels like lol. HMU!”

In the past, Loren has opened up about being ‘disappointed’ with some of his friends as they’d ‘totally reverted and have been reclusive’ since his accident, though on a more positive note he said ‘a couple of friends came out of the woodworks and have been really supportive’.

Fortunately, in his search for new friends the internet has done something good as a plethora of people got in touch to say they’d like to be friends with Loren.

If you’re feeling lonely and reckon you’re struggling to make friends, it might be worth following Loren’s example and speaking out about it, you might just find that more folks than you expected would love to be your friend.

If you’re experiencing distressing thoughts and feelings, the Campaign Against Living Miserably (CALM) is there to support you. They’re open from 5pm–midnight, 365 days a year. Their national number is 0800 58 58 58 and they also have a webchat service if you’re not comfortable talking on the phone.

A man who was cut in half by a forklift and had to have everything below the waist amputated once said there was something he could do to extend his life.

When US man Loren Schauers was 18 he was involved in a terrible accident while driving a forklift across a bridge as it veered off course and he plummeted down with it.

He survived a 50ft drop and being cut in half by the forklift, though to save his life doctors had to amputate everything below his waist and part of his right arm.

Suffering life changing injuries, Loren has since documented his road to recovery and his life afterwards, along with his wife Sabia Reiche.

The couple run their own YouTube channel where they tell people what their life is like and answer the burning questions people have about them.

Among those questions from inquisitive viewers was ‘what would you change about yourself’, and both Loren and Sabia had similar answers as to what they’d do differently.

Loren said: “I’d like to quit my smoking habit, obviously, because I’m mainly all lungs now.”

Loren Schauers said he’d like to quit smoking as he was ‘all lungs now’. (YouTube/SabiaandLoren)

“That way I could prolong my life longer than it’s already been shortened to, given my situation. I wish I could quit. I want to be a better person too, in the way I treat and speak to people.”

Meanwhile, Sabia admitted that she’d like to ‘quit vaping eventually’ as well as ‘control my hyper-fixating nature’.

In a recent video Loren also said they were getting some exercise equipment installed so he could ‘work on my physical therapy’ which he hopes will help out a lot.

In the past Loren and Sabia have talked about his life expectancy and how much time there might be in his future.

Responding to one of the many questions the couple gets through their YouTube channel, Sabia said the couple weren’t sure what Loren’s life expectancy was.

Loren survived a 50ft drop and a forklift (Instagram/@loren.schauers)

She said: “That one is so touch and go, there’s no, you know, for sure.

“In the recorded cases, I believe the average was about 11 years and the record holder was at about 24 years. But none of them were in the same situation as Loren.

“The closest one to Loren’s situation, age, health, all of that was the one who lived about 24 years. So, if we go off of that, you know, we are hoping Loren has, you know, 40-plus years left with us. So, that one is really hard to answer because his case is so rare.

“Because his case is so rare, it’s hard to pinpoint.”

A man who was horrifically cut in half by a forklift has recounted the heartbreaking details of the accident which led to the amputation of the entire bottom half of his body.

Loren Schauers, 23, opened up about the fateful day that his life changed forever as an 18-year-old while he was working as a labourer on a remote site in Montana, US, in September 2019.

He described how he turned his head and saw his right arm, which had been torn off during the incident, ‘covered in dirt’, as he remained conscious throughout the entire ordeal which left ‘blood everywhere’.

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The young lad had been behind the wheel of an industrial truck when it plummeted 50ft off the side of it and tumbled on top of him, pinning him beneath the forklift.

In a harrowing YouTube video shared just months after the accident, Loren explained that while his team were working on the overpass, a passing car had knocked down one of their barriers – filled with water to weigh it down – that were up.

Split-second decision

So, although he claims he was ‘never trained’ to drive the vehicle, he was asked to ‘grab the forklift which is on the other side of the bridge, drive it across, and move the water barrier back into position’.

As he did so, Loren said that another car then came ‘speeding across’ the bridge after running a red light, leaving him with little options except from trying to get out of their way.

He explained: “I tried to hurry and move and since he was going so fast and whatnot, he couldn’t stop and he basically pushed me off to the side, onto my far side of the forklift.

Instagram/@loren.schauers

“And so I get onto the dirt part on the end of the bridge, trying to get out of his way, and the dirt wasn’t fully compacted yet.

“The dirt workers just came that day and laid it down, so it didn’t have full compaction, so driving a big-ass forklift on it obviously was gonna make it indent into the ground, you know.

“Well, the car pushed me to the side so much that the hillside on my right hand side and the dirt not being compacted started to cause the forklift to lift up.”

The labourer said despite his best efforts, he could not get the forklift to tilt downwards and it instead slowly began ‘creaking up to tip over’.

Pinned under the forklift

He explained that since he was not trained to operate the vehicle, he didn’t know what safety protocol to follow in an emergency – but he thought unbuckling his seatbelt and attempting to jump out of it would be his best bet.

But as he made his bid for safety, Loren’s leg got caught up in his seatbelt.

He recalled: “So, I swung out instead, breaking two of my ribs off the floorboard of the forklift and by this time, the forklift’s rolling down the hill.

“And then it rolled again and I was able to clear it, but then I wasn’t able to clear the top of it.

“Since I wasn’t able to clear it, it landed on my pelvis and my right arm and like, sunk me into the dirt.

Instagram/@loren.schauers

“So, it didn’t split me right in half, it just crushed every bone from my pelvis down pretty much,” he said.

Loren claims that he faced an agonising ‘ 10, 15 minute’ wait as his co-workers scrambled to get a bigger machine to yank the forklift off of him, which he spent ‘in complete shock’.

“I had no pain whatsoever, and I just, the hardest part about that was probably just breathing ’cause it felt like my breathing was restricted,” he said.

As they had no mobile phone signal to alert emergency services, one of his colleagues had to drive to the next town over, Wilsall, to find a medic, before he was later helicoptered to hospital.

Legs were ‘completely done for’

Speaking of his experience in hospital, Loren continued: “There’s, like, 10 to 15 people in this emergency room just all while not knowing what the f**k to do.

“I lifted my head and looked up and I see my legs just looking like Derrick Rose‘s leg times ten. Pretty much just bone sticking out everywhere and my legs were just completely done for, let’s put it at that.

“And they slam my head down, put a strap over my head, told me that they didn’t want me to lift my head in case I broke my spine. And then they put the anaesthesia mask on me. Still felt no pain at this point.

“And as I’m laying there, still not feeling any pain, I felt them make this midline incision in my stomach and start putting my ribs back into place.

“I don’t know if it was a feeling or a hearing but it was like, cracking, and finally I passed out.”

Instagram/@loren.schauers

In the following days, his then-girlfriend and now-wife Sabia said her goodbyes to him six times but Loren managed to pull through and later decided to undergo hemicorporectomy surgery – which meant the amputation of everything below the waist.

Recalling his reaction to the life-changing decision, Sabia said: “From that moment is when I knew that he wasn’t going anywhere, because he looked them dead in the eye and told them that he doesn’t care if he’s just a head on a plate, they’re gonna do the surgery and they’re gonna keep him alive.

“And so, that really brought a lot of hope for us that, you know, he was a fighter, which we already knew because he was still alive.”

The couple are still going strong and regularly share updates and videos on social media to let people know how Loren lives and what life looks like for him now.