A soldier went above and beyond the call of duty when he amputated his own leg to save the lives of his crew mates following a freak accident.
Stationed in Poland as part of a NATO operation, Colorado native Ezra Maes, 21, was taking part in an overnight training exercise when he and his two crewmates fell asleep in their tank and awoke to find it speeding down a hill.
Maes called out to the driver to ‘step on the breaks’, believing the frightening awakening to all be a part of an elaborate prank.
But the driver desperately insisted it wasn’t, telling him the parking break had failed and the emergency brakes weren’t responding either.
It would later be discovered the 65-ton M1A1 Abrams had suffered a hydraulic leak, but with all operational systems failing, and with the tank hurtling down the hill at 90 MPH, Maes and his crew had no choice left but to brace for impact.
Pictured with fellow survivors Sgt. Aechere Crump (left) and Pfc. Victor Alamo (right), Colorado native Ezra Maes, 21, was taking part in an overnight training exercise when he and his two crewmates fell asleep in their tank and awoke to find it speeding down a hill
It would later be discovered the 65-ton M1A1 Abrams had suffered a hydraulic leak, but with all operational systems failing, and with the tank hurtling down the hill at 90 MPH, Maes and his crew had no choice left but to brace for impact
‘We realized there was nothing else we could do and just held on,’ Maes said in a press release.
After a number of sharp bumps, the tank crashed in an embankment at full speed, throwing Maes forward and causing his leg to get caught in the turret gear.
The armor crewman then felt the full force of the tank turret sliding onto his leg. He thought his leg was broken, but he remained more concerned about the injuries suffered by his crew mates.
The driver of the tank, Victor Alamo, was pinned down after smashing his head through the driver’s hatch and braking his back.
Sgt. Aechere Crump, the gunner, had dislocated her leg and was bleeding profusely from a deep cut on her thigh.
Maes immediately realized had ruptured her femoral artery.
Determined to assist his crew mates, Maes began twisting and turning trying to dislodge himself from the gearing believing his uniformed to be snagged on the on the mangled metal before him.
‘I pushed and pulled at my leg as hard as I could to get loose and felt a sharp tear,’ Maes said. ‘I thought I had dislodged my leg, but when I moved away, my leg was completely gone.’
Determined to assist his crew mates, Maes began twisting and turning trying to dislodge himself from the gearing believing his uniformed was snagged on the on the mass of mangled metal before him. ‘I pushed and pulled at my leg as hard as I could to get loose and felt a sharp tear,’ Maes said. ‘I thought I had dislodged my leg, but when I moved away, my leg was completely gone.’
Freed from the pressure of the turret, blood began oozing from Maes’ wound at a rapid rate, but with Crump and Alamo’s lives on the line, Maes persevered through the panic and pain and pulled himself up and into the back of the tank to grab a medical kit.
Halfway there, Maes said he started to feel lightheaded from the blood loss.
‘I knew I was going into shock,’ he said. ‘All I could think about was no one knows we’re down here.’
Maes added that he knew any hopes of survival rested on his shoulders.
‘Either I step up or we all die,’ he recalled thinking.
Maes immediately started shock procedures on himself and his crew, ordering them to focus on their breathing and telling them to clinch their belts into makeshift tourniquets to stem any bleeding.
The tank’s radio systems had been destroyed in the crash, and their cell phones were either dead or broken – all except one.
Incredibly, Maes’ phone started ringing. Cramp crawled towards it, with one leg broken and the other heavily cut, and tossed down to him, where he texted a friend to summon help.
What happened next remains largely a blur for Maes, with his last memory of the incident an image of his sergeant major running up a hill carrying his leg on his shoulder.
‘I wanted to keep it, see if it could be reattached, but it was pulverized,’ Maes reflected.
Freed from the pressure of the turret, blood began oozing from Maes’ wound at a rapid rate, but with Crump and Alamo’s lives on the line, Maes persevered through the panic and pain and pulled himself up and into the back of the tank to grab a medical kit
He was then rushed to hospital, where doctors found he had also broken his ankle, pelvis in three places and his shoulder.
Between an infection he picked up in transit and nearly daily surgeries to fend it off, Maes spent four months in intensive care.
‘I feel super lucky,’ he said. ‘My crew all does. So many things could have gone wrong. Besides my leg, we all walked away pretty much unscathed.’
One year on, the 21-year-old is still undergoing physical and occupational therapy at the Center for the Intrepid, BAMC’s rehabilitation center. He does yoga up to three times a week, kayaks, works with service dogs – and just about anything he can do to stay active.
Maes is currently in the process of being fitted for a long-term prosthetic leg, a permanent implant that will allow him to ‘clip in and go’.
Despite the life-changing outcome of that fateful night, Maes insists he’s been given a second chance at life and believes it’s the best thing that’s ever happened to him.
I’ll probably say that for the rest of my life,’ he told Fox News. ‘Every day I wake up and look at it, and I remember how close I was to losing it all. And I’m still here.
‘I managed to survive, and this is just the scar I walked away with.’
Maes, whose great-grandfather served in the Army, now hopes to become a prosthetist and help others regain their mobility.
‘When something like this happens, it’s easy to give up because your life won’t be the same, and you’re not wrong,’ he said.
‘Life will take a 180, but it doesn’t have to be a bad thing. Don’t let it hinder you from moving forward.’