KNOX (TNS) — Seth Apel was 12 when his right arm was torn from his body in an unthinkable farming accident.

Nine years later, he says the terrifying ordeal and the subsequent reattachment of his arm at a Pittsburgh hospital turned out to be one of the best days of his life.

“My story has been able to touch people and help them,” he said. “And I could not do that with two arms.”

Apel, now 21, of Knox in Clarion County said the freak accident gave him strength to help others through volunteering and ministry.

“I decided I wasn’t gonna let my circumstances and what happened to me dictate where I’m going or what I can do with my life,” he said.

On Nov. 7, 2015, Apel was on firewood duty on his parents’ property when his coat got caught in part of the tractor he was using.

“I just remember seeing my coat in the machine and then looking down and not seeing my arm,” he said.

He didn’t go into shock. His first instinct was to lie down so the open wound wouldn’t get infected.

“I can relive the whole day in my head if I want, but I can’t remember how extreme the pain was,” he said.

While on the ground, Apel said he remembers feeling betrayed.

“I’d been raised in a Christian family and gone to church, but I’d never actually had a relationship with the Lord,” he said. “I remember laying there, screaming in pain and feeling betrayed, like, ‘If there was a God, why would he let this happen to a 12-year-old boy?’ “

Miracle reattachment

A medical helicopter flew him to UPMC Children’s Hospital of Pittsburgh, where a plastic surgeon and a trauma team reattached the arm in a six-hour surgery.

“I remember waking up in the hospital and just being very confused,” Apel said, which was partially because of the drugs he’d been given. “It didn’t sink in what happened for a little bit.”

He said he learned he lost next to no blood in the accident, which illuminated his faith in God.

“I should’ve bled out right there,” Apel said.

His family had put his severed arm on frozen vegetables to transport with him to the hospital.

Most doctors in the operating room felt it would be too risky to try to reattach his arm, except for one: Dr. Lorelei Grunwaldt.

“The Lord put her in charge that day,” Apel said. “Even though I felt betrayed in the moment, I can look back and I can see that he was there the whole time protecting me, and I’m so thankful for that.”

Grunwaldt, 49, of Peters no longer works at Children’s. She owns the Dr. Grunwaldt Falbo Plastic Surgery and Med Spa in McMurray.

“I remember the day pretty vividly,” she told TribLive. “I was on call, and I was actually getting ready to go out to dinner with my now-husband.”

Grunwaldt went straight into Children’s, and, though Apel’s situation wasn’t ideal for an arm replantation, she wanted to give it a try.

“He was young and healthy, and he had gotten there quickly,” she said. “Despite some skepticism from doing it from the rest of the team, I sort of pushed everyone forward.”

A limb that has become detached from the body must be reattached within six hours, Grunwaldt said.

Had Apel been older, she might not have attempted the reattachment because his nerves and blood vessels were torn, she said.

After getting his arm reattached, Apel underwent physical therapy for seven years.

Apel can now carry a bag and open a door with his right arm, but he doesn’t have any fine motor skills.

“The family’s stayed in touch with me, which has been so nice to hear how he’s doing and his progress,” Grunwaldt said.

Emotional recovery

Apel didn’t just lose his arm that day; he also lost his career goals. He wanted to join the Marines and fly helicopters like his dad.

One of the first things Apel had to do before even going to physical therapy was learn to walk again after being bedridden for so long.

“We worked through nerve hypersensitivity, and that is a very strange sensation,” he said of his experience in occupational therapy. “The fabric velvet would feel like my arm is being dragged underneath of a speeding vehicle just because my nerves were so messed up.”

During one of his four reconstructive surgeries, Apel said a muscle was taken from his leg and put in his arm, and his tendons were fused to that muscle.

“But what happened is the scar ended up growing around the tendon, so my fingers won’t open,” he said.

Apel hit a setback during his senior year of high school when he broke his arm playing soccer — the same one that had been chopped off.

“I had to have a surgery, when they put another metal plate in my arm,” he said.

Though Apel was homeschooled, he played soccer and baseball at Keystone High School, which helped him meet people and make friends. He also participated in a Clarion County homeschool group.

“I dealt with wanting to fit in when I was younger,” he said. “I always had eyes on me because of what happened.”

Apel’s sports teammates were good about letting him figure things out on his own.

He dealt with depression, but he said he learned to accept his identity.

“I’ve learned that gratitude is the enemy of depression,” Apel said. “You can’t be upset or sad about something if you’ve trained your heart to be grateful.”

Religion has shaped his outlook on life.

“I don’t care if I fit in; I’m not supposed to fit in,” Apel said. “I can use my uniqueness to help others.”

He’s able to squeeze his fingers.

“We were able to get my shoulder movement, my elbow, pretty much all of my upper arm is OK and strong, but my forearm was something we weren’t quite able to get,” Apel said. “So I don’t really have any control of my forearm, and my wrist is fused.”

He’s still working to achieve more finger movement.

“I sit at a table and try to pick pegs out of a board and set them down, and some of those finite movements,” Apel said.

Faith, which carried him through his storied recovery, has played a huge part in why he strives to give back to others.

Sharing his story

Not long after the accident, Apel started speaking at churches, high schools and libraries.

“They reached out to us,” he said, “and then my mom basically just told them I’d go.”

He spoke at places like Redbank Valley High School and Hope Rising Church.

“I wasn’t a big fan of all this attention. I was like, ‘Just leave me alone. I just wanna have fun, be a kid,’ ” he said.

But Apel said he realized he needed to get uncomfortable and learn new skills like public speaking in order to help others.

“It’s never really comfortable to stand up in front of everyone and have them all stare at you,” he said, “but so many doors have been opened through my accident, I’d be a fool not to walk through them.”

In November 2023, Apel said, the Lord told him to go to Romania and write a book.

“It kind of shocked me,” he said. “I didn’t know why I had to go to Romania to write a book.”

But just two months later, in January, he said, he had $6,000 and a plane ticket to Romania. He posted in a Facebook group created after his accident that he was making the trip. A man ended up giving him $5,000 in a bank envelope, with another lady sending him $1,000. Someone else paid for his flight.

“This random lady came up to me and told me she had a dream about me … that was the sign,” he said. “People heard about it, and they said ‘you’re gonna go.’ “

He came back in the spring after going to Romania with Barnabas Ministries. Apel said his grandparents helped establish the group, but he hadn’t previously been involved. It’s a ministry group that shares the love of Jesus with everyone, especially with youth and young adults, he said.

In Romania, Apel stayed in the town of Sebis, which is two hours away from the city Timisoara. He traveled by himself and got to work with kids through vacation bible schools and camps.

“I was writing for two and a half months there,” Apel said. “I’m not really like a super good writer, but that gave me a good opportunity — because there’s no distractions there, especially when you don’t know the language — to really dig back into my story.”

The book will help people deal with trauma and explore the mental side of his recovery from the farming accident. It’s still a work in progress, he said.

“There’s a lot of people that struggle with things, and I’ve met people that have gone through something and just gone into a depression that they can’t seem to get out of,” Apel said.

He’s set to go back to Romania in April after wrapping up speaking engagements throughout the winter across the country.

“I’ll be speaking at whatever churches around the country will have me speak in an effort to raise support for a community center in Romania,” Apel said.

Unique daily life

In addition to playing sports, Apel is an avid outdoorsman.

“I think part of the reason why I like sports and nature so much is because they don’t do things for you … they’re not sympathetic,” he said. “It challenges you.”

Activities like hunting allow him to come up with creative solutions and to keep pushing himself. He uses crossbows to hunt and made his own arm brace to take the stress off his forearm and wrist.

“I haven’t found something yet that I really haven’t been able to figure out, and I’m grateful for that.”

Apel said he likes the challenge.

“Nothing I can say or do or think about will change what has happened to me. I can only change what will happen, so there’s no point in me looking back and thinking, ‘Oh, poor me,’ ” he said. “I can figure things out with one arm.”

Apel also works as a carpenter along with his father.

“I have to use some unconventional ways of holding things, but I can get pretty much everything done,” he said.

Though there are times Apel wonders what life would be like with two fully working arms, he said the experience has made him a better person.

“Life with one arm is just my life, but that’s because I decided that,” he said. “I’m grateful for my use that I have and the issues that have brought me this far, but I have to keep pushing myself to get better.”