Shocking scans show metal bar that pierced builder’s body from his groin to his HEAD
A CONSTRUCTION worker had a miraculous escape after falling from scaffolding onto a metal bar that impaled him through his groin and came out of the side of his head.
The 46-year-old man had been working at a building site in Jinan, northeast China, when he tumbled 16ft off the platform onto an iron bar fixed vertically into the ground.
The 6.5ft long metal bar, which is normally used to reinforce concrete, penetrated his scrotum, passed through abdomen, chest, neck and mouth before exiting his body on the top left side of his head.
Horrified colleagues immediately called for help but it took two hours before firefighters could cut through the half inch thick iron bar and take him to hospital.
Doctors were astonished to find the man, who has not been named, conscious and in little pain when he arrived at the emergency room with the metal bar still sticking out of this body.
Shocking scan
Scans showed the iron spike had passed through his body, missing all of his major organs.
Dr Min Zhang, one of the team who treated the man at the emergency department at Qilu Hospital of Shandong University, in Jinan, said it took a team of 30 doctors five hours to surgically remove the metal bar.
He said: “The patient was a middle-aged man who served as the backbone of his family.
“As the incident occurred suddenly, the patient was accompanied by his co-workers, with no family members around him.
“The emergency nurses held the patient’s hand and told him that we would make every effort to treat him.”
Lucky to survive
Staff at the hospital said that while the man was conscious and able to answer their questions when he arrived, his limbs were shaking uncontrollably.
But it was only when they performed the CT scan that they realised the full extent of his injuries.
The metal bar had pierced his scrotum and abdominal cavity, passed through the space in his chest in front of his lungs, entered his throat and penetrated his mouth before fracturing his skull and exiting the left side of his head.
Amazingly it had not caused any serious injury to his organs, causing only bruising to his heart and brain.
Writing about the case in the journal International Emergency Nursing, Dr Zhang and his colleagues said the most difficult part of the treatment was moving the patient without touching the metal bar and causing more damage.
MORE ON CASE REPORTS
But once they had removed the metal bar, they said the patient went on to make a full recovery and even returned to work a few months after the accident.
They said: “The patient did not have injuries to the brain, heart, lungs, trachea or large blood vessels, which was beneficial for survival.
“The patient was able to return to work and be completely independent. The main organs were normal and he could perform normal activities.”
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