VESTAL, N.Y. (WIVT/WBGH) – At the age of 24, Rick Yarosh’s life changed forever.
“I look in the mirror, I know exactly who I am. I don’t look like who I used to look like, but I know exactly who I am,” the New York state native said in a recent interview. “I was 9 months into a deployment into Iraq and was injured in an IED explosion.”“My vehicle that I was in, Bradley Fighting Vehicle, was hit with an explosion underneath and it went through the bottom of my vehicle to the turret where I was sitting. But also where the turret is is where we have our fuel tank. So the explosion hit the fuel tank, caused a really big fire and that’s what changed my life forever really,” Yarosh, a retired Army sergeant said.
Yarosh says he was engulfed in flames and covered in fuel as a result of the explosion. He jumped out of the vehicle and broke his leg, without being able to run he says he believed his life was over…