The Serbian man’s wife describes the dramatic moments they experienced at 20,000 feet, as she saved him from certain death when he found himself with half his body outside the cabin.

The incident occurred last Friday morning on a flight from Thessaloniki to Memmingen, Germany. A few minutes after takeoff, according to eyewitness accounts, a deafening noise was heard when a piece of the engine broke off and struck the window next to where Ljubiša Karović from Serbia was sitting.

The impact shattered the window, and the sudden decompression caused the passenger to be sucked toward the opening, with his head and shoulders hanging out of the fuselage at an altitude of about 20,000 feet.

“I grabbed him by the legs”

His wife, Svetlana Grkovic, who was sitting next to him, reacted instantly.

“It was as if a piece of the engine had broken off and hit the window next to where Ljubiša was sitting. I reacted immediately and grabbed him by the legs. I thought: ‘If we’re going to die, we’ll die together.’ It was horrific,” the woman told the Serbian network Nova.

For about five minutes, she held on to her husband with all her strength, until other passengers rushed to help and managed to pull him back into the cabin, by which time the oxygen masks had already dropped.

Svetlana recalls that a man and a woman immediately ran to her side.

“They came to help me. I remember a man and a woman. He helped us a great deal—both me and Lyubisha,” she said, expressing her wish to meet him again to thank him in person.

He is being treated for burns and is in a state of shock

Ljubiša Karović remains hospitalized. According to his wife, he has a serious injury to his arm, friction burns, and is in a state of severe shock. Due to his injuries, he is still unable to speak; he lost consciousness several times during the incident and remembers very little of what happened.

Passengers described scenes of chaos inside the aircraft. Some initially thought the plane was crashing, while others rushed to help the injured man.

“He had blood on his head and kept passing out. We were all wearing oxygen masks and didn’t know if we’d make it,” said one of the passengers.

Another eyewitness stated that the Serbian man was saved because he was wearing his seatbelt. “Fortunately, he hadn’t taken it off. His wife held his legs for five whole minutes until the other passengers arrived to pull him inside,” he said.

It should be noted that the Boeing 737-800 returned to Thessaloniki, where it made an emergency landing without further incident. However, the aircraft remained in the air for about one hour and 14 minutes before landing.

Source: Proto Thema