If you searched this phrase, you’re likely thinking of Loren Schauers, a Montana man who lost the entire lower half of his body and part of his right arm after a forklift accident in 2019. He was 19 years old at the time. The story went viral partly because of the sheer scale of what he survived, and partly because he and his wife have been openly documenting his life ever since. He’s alive, married, and still sharing updates as of 2025.
How the Accident Happened
On September 27, 2019, Loren was working a construction job in Montana. His supervisor asked him to move a forklift across a bridge and reposition a water barrier. Loren had never been trained to drive a forklift. While crossing the bridge, the forklift plunged off the edge and crushed him beneath it.
The injuries to his pelvis and lower body were catastrophic. Surgeons told him directly: lose the lower half of your body, or potentially die in surgery. His mother and sister weren’t even sure he would want to survive under those terms. Loren chose the surgery.
What a Hemicorporectomy Involves
The procedure Loren underwent is called a hemicorporectomy, one of the most extreme surgeries in modern medicine. It involves severing the spine at the lower back and removing everything below the waist, including both legs, the pelvis, and the organs within it. The spinal cord is cut, and major blood vessels like the body’s largest vein are tied off. It carries enormous risk of massive blood loss and dangerous drops in blood pressure during the operation itself.
In Loren’s case, the lower part of his right arm was also amputated due to crush injuries. He has since been fitted with a bionic limb for that arm.
Hemicorporectomies are extraordinarily rare. As of the most recent medical literature, only about 71 cases have ever been reported. The vast majority were performed for cancer or severe bone infections. Only three were performed for traumatic injuries like Loren’s, making his case nearly unprecedented.
Life After Losing Half His Body
Loren’s wife, Sabia Schauers-Reiche, is his primary caregiver. The couple has shared videos showing their daily routine: Sabia lifts Loren out of bed each morning and carries him to the sofa, where he repositions himself upright. When he’s able to use his prosthetic, he has more independence, but ongoing health complications have sometimes kept him from wearing it for extended periods.
In recent updates, both Loren and Sabia have been candid about the frustration of being stuck at home during health setbacks. “We’re both sick and tired of sitting around the house doing nothing,” Loren said in one video. They’ve described waiting on additional surgeries before they can get back to a more active routine.
How Long Hemicorporectomy Patients Survive
There’s no simple answer to life expectancy after this procedure, largely because so few people have ever had it. Published data suggests that more than half of patients who had the surgery for non-cancer reasons survived at least nine years. Outcomes tend to be better when the surgery is done for trauma or infection rather than cancer.
Sabia has addressed this question publicly, explaining that the closest comparable case to Loren’s, someone of similar age and health, survived about 24 years after the procedure. “If we go off of that, we are hoping Loren has 40-plus years left with us,” she said. But she also acknowledged the difficulty of making any prediction when the case is this rare.
Phantom Pain and Sensation
One aspect of Loren’s situation that often surprises people is the possibility of still “feeling” the parts of his body that are gone. After any amputation, the brain continues generating sensations from the missing limb. More than 85% of amputees experience phantom limb pain: episodes of stabbing, burning, or electric shock sensations in a body part that no longer exists. Many also report a “frozen” feeling, as though the missing limb is stuck in one position, sometimes accompanied by intense cramping.
These sensations aren’t imaginary. They’re generated by the nervous system, which hasn’t fully updated its map of the body. For someone who lost as much of their body as Loren did, the potential scope of phantom sensation is difficult to imagine. It remains one of the most challenging aspects of recovery for any amputee, and treatment options are limited.
The Workplace Safety Question
One detail that stands out in Loren’s account is that he was never trained to operate a forklift. He was 19, commuting two and a half hours to the job, and his supervisor asked him to handle equipment he had no certification for. Forklift operation requires specific training under federal workplace safety rules, and untrained operators are at significantly higher risk of the exact kind of accident Loren experienced. His story has become a stark example of what can happen when those requirements are ignored.