Sitting in a hospital bed after hours of surgery on both of his broken legs, Jeremi Sensky began putting together the pieces of a life that was shattered on New Year's Day.
The 51-year-old Pennsylvania dad was ring in the new year in New Orleans when a gunman barreled down Bourbon Street, killing 14 people and injuring dozens more. In the chaos, Sensky -- who was paralyzed from the waist down several years ago in a car accident -- got knocked out of his wheelchair, breaking both his legs.
Narrating his ordeal, Sneaky said, "I didn't know if I was going to make it here, and everyone helped me out. I'm all put back together again," Sensky told ABC News' Whit Johnson. "I'm happy to be alive, man.
"Someone was yelling behind me, and I turned around and heard a loud noise.
"The next thing I remember, I was laying on the ground, and my leg was all floppy, like it was broken. "I was lifting up my leg with my hand. It was like bending the pieces, and I didn't know what was wrong."
The fall broke multiple bones on his legs and required hours of surgery.
He explained that his position on the ground might have saved his life as the gunman began firing at bystanders.
"I heard gunfire, and I kept thinking, I hope I'm out of the way from the gunfire. I hope I'm low enough on the ground that I wasn't in the way of the gunfire.
"I was freaked out because of my leg. I kept screaming for help. Nobody was coming. I kept scraping around me trying to find my phone, there were just pieces of my wheelchair.
"I was even more freaked out because now I'm lying by a truck -- and can't move -- that might have explosives in it," he said.
He ultimately credited first responders and hospital staff for saving his life, transporting him from Bourbon Street to University Medical Center for hours of surgery.
Even after he woke up after surgery, he said he struggled to remember what exactly happened that night.
"Honestly, like the whole time, I really did not know what the hell was going on. I just didn't know. I didn't know that I'd been hit by anything. I thought it was an explosion. I thought something blew up," he said.
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