Story By: John Feng, Sub Editor: Joseph Golder, Agency: Asia Wire Report
WARNING: GRAPHIC AND DISTRESSING CONTENT
Video Credit: AsiaWire
These images show a workman impaled upside down through his back and one of his legs by a single steel bar measuring more than 8 feet in length.
Construction worker Wang Jinyou, 54, fell from a scaffold at a worksite in the city of Hai’an in East China’s Jiangsu Province on 15th June.
Footage taken by one of his colleagues shows him suspended upside down while impaled by the 2.5-metre (8-foot 2-inch) rebar, with other workers doing their best to hold him steady before rescuers arrive.
Pictures Credit: AsiaWire
The fire service cut him free, leaving the steel bar in his body, before an ambulance took him to the accident and emergency department at Hai’an People’s Hospital.
He was triaged by Doctor Cui Haidong, deputy head of orthopaedics and the most senior medic on duty at the time, who called the firefighters back to help shear off some sections of the steel bar.
Footage from the emergency department shows sparks flying as a fireman cuts off protruding pieces of metal using an angle grinder.
The hospital says Wang was given priority status and rushed into surgery at 8:05am local time.
Doctor Cui said a total of 1.3 metres (4 feet 3 inches) of the steel bar remained inside the patient’s body, it having impaled his chest via his back, come out his abdomen, and then pierce clean through his right thigh.
The medic started by removing the section remaining in his leg as it was less trauma to his body and low risk. It also created more space for the vital chest surgery to come.
The group were later joined by Doctor Jing Shiyin, head of cardiothoracic surgery, and his team, who opened the patient up and found heavy internal bleeding in his chest cavity as well as a 2-inch rupture in his right lung.
They spent the next three hours slowly removing the steel bar from his chest and back while also dealing with heavy blood loss and blood clots.
Doctor Jing said the metal bar missed Wang’s aorta by 0.8 inches, and that the patient was in surgery for three hours.
The hospital said Wang was transferred out of the Intensive Care Unit on 17th June.
He is stable and recovering, and would be able to walk around unassisted after “one or two more days”, the facility said.
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