Doctors Remove Fence Post From Man’s Chest After Crash

A man was in critical condition after doctors removed a fence post that pierced his chest during a car accident early Tuesday and pinned him to his seat.

Charles Bryan, 25, was driving on an interstate at 2:10 a.m. when his pickup truck struck the center median and ran off the road, state police said.

The pickup’s hood flew up as it slammed through 80 feet of chain-link fence. A 2-foot-long, 1-inch-wide piece of metal pipe punched through the hood of Bryan’s truck, through the windshield, then right through him.

The post lodged in the headrest of the driver’s seat, pinning Bryan in place, police said.

“They said that if it had been an inch in either direction he wouldn’t have made it,” said Keri-Ann Drabenstadt, Bryan’s 17-year-old stepdaughter.

Rescuers cut the pipe on both sides, leaving part of it inside Bryan until he reached the hospital.

“It was very tedious work,” Fire Chief Richard Shank said. “We couldn’t use the big power tools. Everything had to be done by hand with hacksaws.”

Dr. Nikhilesh Agarwal, who removed the post from the upper left side of Bryan’s chest, said Bryan was doing “very well.”