An Akron man had lost his arm and was close to losing his life in a work accident when rescue crews intervened.
NewsChannel5's Alicia Booth reported on Keith Hollingsworth's incredible rescue and recovery, and now he's speaking out about his ordeal.
Hollingsworth doesn't like to watch a tape showing what happened to him a year and a half ago, but he said he remembers it like it happened yesterday.
Hollingsworth was at work cleaning a giant auger that mixes chemicals when his arm got sucked into the machine.
He was trapped up to his neck, and the orthopedic surgeon who had flown in from MetroHealth Medical Center did not have good news.
"'Your arm is basically hanging, I mean, it's beat up pretty bad. We're going to have to amputate your arm.' I had just accepted it already, I mean God was preparing me for it," said Hollingsworth.
Hollingsworth said he remembers an incredible sense of relief when the doctors, medics, and firefighters managed to twist him out of the auger.
"They just kept telling me, 'Almost there, we're almost there.' Almost was never coming, and then it finally came," he said.
Doctors were finally able to safely amputate Hollingsworth's arm and free him from the auger.
Then, his real challenges began.
Physiatrist Gary Clark is overseeing Hollingsworth's effort to learn how to live without his dominant arm.
"I think the biggest challenge is his patience, to stick with it. This is a marathon," said Clark.
It's a marathon that some days Hollingsworth didn't think he could run.
"At first, it was hard to wake up and be like, 'Man, am I going to be able to go on with this? It's real hard,'" he said.
But his wife and three children didn't give him a choice. Even though he looked different, his children treated him just the same.
"That made me feel like, 'OK, well, I'm still me. I lost my arm, but I have to go on now,'" Hollingsworth said.
Putting his pain behind him, Hollingsworth is again enjoying the simple pleasures in life he almost lost.
"I'm so glad and so grateful to be out of that machine. I don't have my arm, but I just got other things to look forward to," he said.
Hollingsworth is planning to start up his own business as soon as he finished his rehab, and he's also working on getting used to a prosthetic arm.
He said he is extremely appreciative of the doctors and nurses from Metro, and all the people who worked so hard to save him.
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