A 23-year-old U.K. man who was pronounced dead twice, has survived massive injuries after being hit by a 16-ton truck, This Is Nottingham reported.
Lewis Godfrey’s body wrapped around the truck’s rear tires, and he broke his ankle and shattered his pelvis. The truck’s driver was unaware he had hit anyone, so he continued to drive, causing further injury.
A paramedic who arrived on scene, said Godfrey was dead since his heart had stopped.
“When I got there, I saw the most horrific injuries,” Dr. Nicholas Foster, a general practitioner who volunteers as a paramedic, told This Is Nottingham. “The level of trauma was so massive, he shouldn’t have made it.”
In order to stop the bleeding, Foster wrapped Godfrey up in a blanket. Godfrey was taken to Queen’s Medical Center in Nottingham, England, where doctors were able to save his life – even though he suffered two cardiac arrests during just one of his many surgeries.
“The skin had essentially been ripped off his body in a band about a foot wide,” said Dr. Daren Forward, one of the surgeons who operated on Godfrey. “His bowel had been damaged, and his bladder ripped off.”
Godfrey had to stay in the hospital for eight-and-a-half weeks, and at one point, had part of his skull removed.
Godfrey said doctors told him he might never walk again, and his brain may be damaged beyond repair, but recently, he had a titanium plate inserted in his head, which gave it a more rounded appearance.
"We owe so much to that hospital – the fact he is here at all after what he's been through is a modern-day miracle," said Godfrey’s father, Graham.
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