It was a relatively ordinary Sunday morning for Salvatore ‘Sam’ Testa – until he was knocked from a tractor slasher and his leg violently amputated.
Four brutal months later – three of which he spent in hospital – you can’t wipe the smile from the Greenbank local’s face as he celebrated his 61st birthday with the team who saved his life.
One weekend in March, Mr Testa and his 26-year-old son Frank visited his parents property at Logan Village to do some routine yard work.
Mr Testa was on a tractor slasher when the machinery was jolted into the air by a tree stump hidden in a stretch of long grass.
He was thrown to the ground. With no kill switch, the slasher kept moving – directly toward him.
He watched in surreal slow motion as the machine rolled over him – once, then again – before its spinning blades tore through his right leg.
“It was like slow motion. I had a lot of time to think, but there’s not a thing I could do about it,” Mr Testa said.
“I even watched the writing on the tread of the tyre flex as it went over me.”
He lost consciousness, and when he came to just moments later, saw the bottom half of his right leg was missing.
He called out for help – 12 times, he recalls – but eventually gave up, believing “I’m done”.
“The strangest thing is that I wasn’t scared through any of it. I wasn’t panicking, or screaming like hell, or in pain.
“I just shut my eyes and put my head down in the grass.”
His neighbours found him first. They quickly called for paramedics and rushed to alert Frank.
Together, with the help of emergency medical dispatcher Tegan Gillman, they fashioned a tourniquet around Mr Testa’s thigh and bravely comforted him through the ideal.
Paramedics Chelsey Orr and Eseta Reupena arrived a short time later and loaded Mr Testa into an ambulance before rushing him to Princess Alexandra Hospital.
Finally, Mr Testa has returned home from hospital and is getting used to his new life on only one leg.
It’s painful and far from easy, but he’s done it all with a genuine smile and positive attitude.
And he says it’s all thanks to the bravery of his neighbours, son, ambulance officers and staff at the PA and Logan hospitals.
He said it was a touching experience for both him and the paramedics to reunite and reflect on the scarring March morning.
