There are lots of freak accidents happening every day but the vast majority of them are very forgettable. Not this one though.
Steven McCormack is a New Zealand truck driver who got turned into a human balloon after his truck penetrated his butt with a hose. No, I’m not making this up. The man was working behind the cab of his truck when he fell and broke a compressed air hose that then pierced his butt and began pumping air into his body.
I felt the air rush into my body and I felt like it was going to explode from my foot.
I was blowing up like a football… it felt like I had the bends, like in diving. I had no choice but just to lay there, blowing up like a balloon.
The air, compressed at 100 psi, expanded his body dramatically, separating fat from muscle and making him scream in agony. His colleagues rushed to his aid, turning off the air and laying him on his side.
An ambulance arrived one hour later and doctors were surprised his skin had not burst.
“It’s fair to say he’s lucky to be alive, it was a potentially life-threatening situation,” a hospital spokeswoman told AFP on Wednesday.
And despite the fact that the accident nearly took his life, the man has kept his sense of humor.
Mr McCormack confided that the air was gradually escaping his body in the way that air usually does.
