'Blessed to be alive,' Lake Arrowhead man says after being crushed in massive rockslide on Hwy. 18

A Lake Arrowhead man continues his recovery nearly a month after his leg and motor home were crushed in a massive rockslide on Highway 18 near Crestline.

"If anybody had been in the passenger seat, they would have been dead -- there's no question," said Joseph Furtek from his hospital bed at Loma Linda University Medical Center. "I spoke to one of the officers who was on the scene, and he said when they arrived, they thought it was a fatality -- that there's no way this person lived. So I'm very, very blessed to be alive."

Furtek said he can't remember anything about the violent rockslide, but said he's grateful for the good Samaritans who helped him that day, as well as the doctors at the hospital who helped save his right leg.

"I completely crushed my right leg," he explained. "I mean there was even discussion about amputating it at the scene; and even in the ER, the trauma unit, because I was losing so much blood out of this leg that they gave me 12 units of blood."

Furtek said he lost nearly 75% of the blood in his body.

"It was getting to the point where, you know, I could die," he said.

Dr. Erin Chang at Loma Linda University Medical Center said Furtek is very fortunate to have survived.

"When we look at an injury to the leg, there are many things we look at," Chang said. "One is how bad the bone is injured, and how badly the blood vessels are injured. Luckily, they were able to look at the blood vessels and they were good. And so, the orthopedic surgeons were able to reconstruct his leg."

Furtek also suffered a traumatic brain injury.

"I'll wake up and be convinced I'm in some other place, and I'll get up and try to walk," he said. "They've had to restrain me a couple times, but they've been off the charts amazing."

Furtek's sister has started a GoFundMe campaign at Fundraiser by Furtek Laura : Support Joseph Furtek's Road to Recovery to pay for medical expenses, as well as to help pay for his motor home, which was destroyed in the incident.

"That motor home was going to be my residence until I found a place to reside," Furtek said. "I'm very grateful and I have a lot of gratitude for the people who have responded; some have been very generous, and it's going to help me out a lot because when I bought this Sprinter, it was going to be my residence.

"I just bought it two days before this incident. So It's come at a bad time; it's really strapped me. But you know I have my life, and I'm very fortunate to have that."