The Man who Stuck a Shovel in his Rectum

Emergency room doctors see everything so it takes a lot to make one cringe — like seeing a man impaled on a shovel. Dr. Kevin Klauer, an E.R. doc based in Canton, Ohio, still remembers the day he dealt with a patient who was trying to fix his roof when he fell off and impaled himself on a shovel. [1] The patient has not been identified for medical privacy reasons. “You can see the shovel sticking out of what appears to be the rectal area,” he said on an episode of “Untold Stories Of The E.R.” that is set to air later this month. “Even when you’ve seen a lot of bad injuries, this is really a cringe moment.” [2] Figuring out the extent of the man’s injuries was a challenge to Klauer’s team, especially when they had to turn the impaled patient over to see where the shovel entered the body. “Turning somebody to examine them while they have a shovel impaled in their rectum is not something anyone’s been trained to do,” he said. “You have to work as a team.”  [3] The man was in so much pain that he filled the hospital with his screams. Klauer is empathetic. “I don’t blame him. If I had a shovel in my rectum, I’d be pretty loud too,” he said. But things got worse. It turns out the shovel was actually impaled in the perineum, the patch of skin between the rectal area and the scrotum. That created even bigger problems, according to Klauer. “He could bleed to death with seconds or minutes if there are injuries to the liver, kidneys or other organs that use a lot of blood vessels,” Klauer said, who ordered a CAT Scan. [4] After a few tense moments, the shovel was removed and the patient eventually recovered. [5] The man now has professionals fix his roof rather than risk another impalement. As the Washington Post notes, the story is set to be featured on the 100th episode of Untold Stories of the ER, airing on the Discovery Fit & Health channel. Earlier this year, a woman suffered a similar injury, as the Inquisitr reported at the time. A Colorado woman was reportedly voice texting when she was involved in an accident that caused her to be impaled by a guardrail, through the same region of the body. [6]