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A severe accident nearly took the life of 18-year-old John Thompson but somehow he thankfully lived to tell the story.

It was back in 1992 when John was working alone on the farm IN North Dakota farm in the US. While watching grain come out of a tractor his shirt tails suddenly became caught up in the machine's shaft. He tried to free them but his arms became tangled up as well and before he knew it, they had been chopped off.

Despite the horrendous scenario he now found himself in, John somehow managed to drag himself about a hundred yards to the house, fighting through the pain.

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With no arms help him, he used his mouth to open the door and get inside. Dialling for help was impossible but John didn’t give up and instead he grabbed a pencil in his teeth and called his cousin.

Astonishingly, he then sat in a bathtub until help arrived so that blood wouldn't get on the carpet. After being flown to hospital, a team of surgeons spent six hours reattaching his arms, defying the odds.

He says he lost so much blood that the emergency room staff couldn’t believe he was even alive. And on top of his ordeal, he still remained conscious.

At one point, he even cracked a joke as he was airlifted to Minnesota for surgery, telling the medical team that his arms, which had been packed in ice, felt cold.

The young farmer spent four weeks in a coma after the operation. When he finally woke up, he faced more surgery, intense rehabilitation and a fight against a serious blood infection.

More than 30 years on, John still remembers every detail of that day. "I got caught up in the power shaft,” he said.

“Next thing I knew, everything went dark, and I started feeling funny. I woke up to my dog licking my face - and realised I’d lost both arms just below the shoulders.”

Despite everything, John has kept his fighting spirit. These days, he can move his arms, but his fists stay clenched unless he manually opens them. He was offered prosthetic hands, but he turned them down. He doesn’t want to lose that sense of touch, that connection to the world.

And he’s honest about the attention he’s received over the years. “That’s been the hardest part,” he admits. “Trying to get away from the fame, but I just can’t. People want to use me - for good or bad - and I keep coming back to it.”

His new-found fame saw him taking a trip to the White House and singing the national anthem at a Minnesota Twins baseball game. He even wrote a book about his experience, called 'Home In One Piece', and has raised money and awareness about blood donations.

When asked about the future, he laughed: “I’d like to see what happens to you at 18, thrown into all this,” he says. “I’m pretty damned impressed with what I’ve done."