PORTLAND, Ore. -- A Bend teenager whose arm was severed in a dory boat collision said Wednesday he feels blessed that other surfers were able to find his arm.

Cole Ortega spoke from his bed at Legacy Emanuel Hospital, where a surgeon reattached his arm and doctors helped him recover from a punctured lung, two broken ribs and a cut on his head.

Watch Interview | View Photo Of Ortega's Arm

Earlier this month, a dory boat speeding toward the Pacific City shore sliced off Ortega's arm. Quick-thinking surfers pulled Ortega from the water.

On Wednesday, Ortega said he felt tingling in his fingers as he rested them on a pillow on his hospital bed.

He said that from the first moments after the accident, his family helped keep him positive.

"I just kept feeling tightening on my arm because they had a tourniquet on there," Ortega said. "But then I saw my dad and my mom and my sister. It gave me hope that I was going to be OK."

He said that having his family with him kept him from ever doubting that he would make it through the ordeal.

"They just kept me with high hopes and they just kept me thinking positive. I never had any doubt that I wasn't going to make it," Ortega said.

The teen is at the start of a long healing process after three surgeries to reattach his arm and perform skin grafts. It will be months before he knows whether he will regain use of his arm.

His parents said they feared the worst when they heard their son was hurt.

"I had no idea what had happened until we got down to the beach and then it was just a huge shock of what happened and realizing that his arm wasn't there," Cole's father, Charlie Ortega, said.

"We're anxious to just go home and get on with our life and his recovery, which I know is going to take some time, but we'll get there," Cole's mother, Sherry Ortega, said.

The Ortegas said they wanted to thank everyone who has offered support to their son, especially those who saved him.

Since the accident, the Tillamook County district attorney's office reviewed the evidence in the case and decided that no criminal charges will be filed against Darrell Martin, the operator of the dory boat that severed Ortega's arm.

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