DEATH - 3 Hours After Being Cut in Half, USA

A man severed at the waist by an 18-wheeler, lived for more than three hours, as paramedics rushed his torso by air and his lower body by ground to the hospital where he died.

Herbert Lee Grossman, 59, of Quitman, Texas, was crushed about 10 a.m. while walking in a truck stop parking lot. The truck, which was moving at less than 5 mph, was pulling out of a parking space. "We got the call as a signal seven (dead person), and then a few minutes later, I heard (paramedics) saying, "We've got breath,' " said Florida Highway Patrol Trooper Melissa Pestana.

Grossman raised his arms to the paramedics, who airlifted his upper body to West Florida Regional Medical Center by helicopter, while an ambulance carried his lower body. He was pronounced dead at 1:32 p.m. The driver of the truck, Eddie Patterson, 55, of Lake Providence, La., had been talking to Grossman moments before moving his truck. The two had been checking Grossman's truck.

"The driver said he rolled out, looked in his rearview mirror and all he saw was legs," said truck driver Don Leggett, 53. "He just figured there would be a body attached. If you're cut in half, wouldn't you die instantly?"


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