Juab County man who lost both legs in accident explains how he survived
(KUTV) Despite being trapped in a machine that cut off both his legs, a Nephi man said he knew he would survive his horrific accident.
"All I knew, I wasn't going to die. I wasn't going to die till I talked to my wife again," said John Vrana, 32, who is now recovering from the September 18 accident at Utah Valley Regional Medical Center in Provo.
Vrana had been temporarily working at his father-in-law's plant in Mills, south of Nephi. On September 18 he was trying to unclog a machine -- straddling it with his legs -- when he slipped.
"It just started sucking me in, sucking my right leg in," said Vrana.
He tried to wiggle out, but his left leg went in, too. Instinctively, Vrana said, he grabbed a nearby window and held on.
"I just knew that if the weight of my body was pushing me in, I was done for," he said.
Vrana was able to get free, but both his legs had been cut off.
"I remember looking at my right leg being ripped off," he said. "I remember looking at the bone of my right leg."
No one else was around. Vrana was alone.
"I started crawling and tried to pull my phone out and my phone was broke," he said.
Vrana wrapped his own belt around his left leg -- an action nurses say likely saved him from bleeding to death -- and crawled 30 feet to his brother-in-law.
He was airlifted to the hospital in Provo.
"Everything clicked in my mind just what I needed to do," said Vrana, thinking back on everything he did to survive. "I don't know how I did it. But I did."
Vrana and his wife have two kids and are expecting twins. He'll be around for that.
He also plans to be walking on prosthetic legs within a year.
"The sky's the limit," Vrana said. "There's nothing that I'm slowing down."
The family has set up a GoFundMe account.
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