'An eyeopener': Man who survived being hit by train says it's changed his perspective

The young man who survived being hit and dragged 12 metres under a train in Winnipeg earlier this month is thankful to be alive and blames his addiction for the accident that has cost him both his legs.

Elijah Gunner says the experience has changed his life and amazingly, he's glad it happened.

"It was an eyeopener for me I'll never drink again," Gunner, 20, told CBC News outside of the Health Sciences Centre where he has been recovering since being hit by the train near the corner of Molson Street and Norwich Avenue Sept. 17.

"It doesn't get me depressed or get me down or anythingbecause I think everything happens for a reason, and I'm still alive.

"Not many people can fly forty-feet under a train and survive that."

Gunner said he'd been drinking heavily the night he was hitand the last thing he remembers is leaving a party with friends around 1 a.m. to get cigarettes from a nearby store.

He's pieced together what happened next by talking to friends and police.

Gunner said while his friends went around a set of railway tracks that crossed their path, he decided to hop the tracks, something he says he's done many times before.

"And that's what I originally thought had happened and I had just messed up, but from what the police told me the people that were operating the train seen me on the tracks just before they hit me," he said. "I was just crossing, but I either didn't hear or care about the train."

"I couldn't get up because I didn't have my legs"

A friend who was nearby at the timecame running back after hearing the screams of witnesses and found Gunner struggling near the train.

"He seen me trying to get up from under the train, but I couldn't get up because I didn't have my legs," said Gunner. "One of my other friends remembers seeing my shoes and pieces of my leg along the ditch of the railroad."

Gunner credits the fast-thinking police officers, who arrived before paramedics and used zip-ties as a makeshift tourniquet, with saving his life.

"I almost didn't survive," he said.

What Gunner does remember is waking up in hospital andfinding out for the first time he had lost his legs.

"I asked the nurse 'Where's my shoes?Can I go?' And she said that they didn't have my shoes and I asked, 'Why not?' And she said that I didn't have my legs.

"I was in shock and I was really, really pissed off more at myself for having caused the injury."

But with the support of friends and his family who flew in from North Bay, Ont. within hours of the accident Gunner says that initial anger has turned into gratitude that hesurvived.

He said he isthankful he still has his intelligence, a clear mindand his vision.

"I think I'm very lucky and I have something watching me. I don't know if it's an angel or what, but something's watching me."

A long road to recovery

As well as losing his legs, doctors have told Gunner he suffered several concussions, has massive internal bleedingand has serious nerve and tendon damage in both legs.

He has too many stitches and staples in his head to count, and added nurses have said he may need to stay in hospital for the next five months.

His brother Tytus Gunner, 22, who has been by his side since the accidentand calls his brother his best friend, says it's been incredible to watch just how quickly that recovery process is going.

"Within three or four days he was awake and talking, and a couple of days after that he got his wheelchair, so he was able to walk around and talk," TytusGunner said.

"From what the doctors were telling me they were making me worry more, but as soon as he started talking I knew he would be fine and he'd pull through."

Gunner said he decided to speak out publicly about what happened after reading media accounts of his accident.

He wanted to set the record straight.

"They made it seem like it was the train's fault. But it was just alcohol and stupidity and bad choices that led up to it," he said.

Wants to help others

Gunner saidhe's been making bad choices and drinking too much for years and sees now that his behaviour was just a way of escaping a hard upbringing that saw him running from foster home to foster home without much direction.

He said he's been in foster care since birth and became a ward of the state at the age of seven.

As soon as he's well enough to travel, Gunner said he's going to go back to Ontario to visit his former foster parents who have told him they will help him get into rehab for alcohol.

After that, he wants become a social worker and open his own group home.

"I grew up in places where I didn't feel wanted or accepted and that led to me drinking every day," he said.

"[The accident]made me realize that it's not really the thing to do.If you want to deal with it then deal with it, and that's what I plan on doing."

'I couldn't get up because I didn't have my legs'

7 years ago

Duration 2:17

The young man who survived being hit and dragged 12 metres under a train in Winnipeg earlier this month is thankful to be alive and blames his addiction for the accident that has cost him both his legs.