Ljubisa Karovic, a 61-year-old Serbian man, has given a harrowing account of the moment he found himself with half his body outside the cabin of a Ryanair aircraft after the window beside him shattered mid-flight.

The incident occurred on the morning of Friday, 10 July, aboard Ryanair flight FR1879 travelling from Thessaloniki to Memmingen in Germany. According to witnesses, a deafening noise was heard just minutes after take-off when part of the engine broke away and struck the window next to Karovic’s seat. The impact shattered the window, and the sudden decompression that followed pulled him towards the opening, with his head and shoulders forced outside the fuselage at an altitude of roughly 20,000 feet. His wife and fellow passengers held onto him until they managed to pull him back inside the cabin.

Speaking to German newspaper Bild almost two weeks later, Karovic described the terrifying moments he lived through. He said he had been asleep before being woken by an extremely loud noise that sounded like a bomb going off, and that he was conscious for only a moment before losing track of what happened next.

When he came round, he said, he was covered in blood, with it dripping from his face and hands. He added that the images from those minutes still come flooding back whenever he closes his eyes, calling it a nightmare he cannot put into words.

Karovic suffered burns to part of his right hand and to his back in the incident. The right side of his body was also temporarily paralysed, while his right ear and right eye sustained partial damage. He said he felt nothing for some time afterwards.

Before the incident, Karovic lived an active life and loved travelling by plane, but he says everything has now changed. He described being unable even to walk down the street without being bothered by noise and commotion, saying he had hit rock bottom psychologically and that the ordeal had affected both his work and his family. As the main breadwinner, he said everything now depended on him, calling the experience a complete upheaval of his life and adding that he could no longer concentrate on anything, leaving him unable to function properly.

He said he was not even considering getting on another flight, and that every time he hears an aircraft he becomes anxious and develops a fever. It remains unclear whether he will be able to lead a normal life again, or whether he will need surgery or must continue wearing a neck brace for the time being.

A few days earlier, Karovic’s wife, Svetlana Grkovic, had spoken to Serbian broadcaster Nova about the incident, describing how she and fellow passengers saved her husband from near-certain death. She said part of the engine appeared to break off and strike the window beside her husband, and that she reacted immediately, grabbing him by the legs. She recalled thinking that if they were going to die, they would die together, calling the experience horrific.

Grkovic said she held onto her husband with all her strength for around five minutes until other passengers rushed to help and managed to pull him back into the cabin, by which point the oxygen masks had already dropped. She recalled a man and a woman who ran straight over to help, saying the man in particular had been enormously helpful to both her and her husband, and that she hoped to meet him again to thank him in person.