Transcript (en)

With a thousand words. Get it out! Get it out right now! It was a really scary sight. Do something! A shovel impalement in the perineum. A man fell off a roof. When paramedics brought him to the ER, every doctor froze. A wooden shovel handle was sticking straight up between his legs. That spot makes every man uncomfortable just looking at it. His name was Jay. He was working on the roof when it happened. The shovel slipped first and landed blade down in the dirt. Then Jay fell right after it. He landed straddling the handle. The wood pierced his perineum, the most vulnerable spot on a man's body. Dr. Krall gave him morphine right away. But the real problem was just getting started. The surgeon was in another operation and couldn't come for hours. Nobody dared touch that shovel. It might be pressing against a major blood vessel. Pull it out, and he could bleed to death in seconds. Nurses held the shovel steady with their hands. Meanwhile, doctors started taking x-rays. Jay's elbow was broken too. He kept screaming in pain. That's when his wife Karen burst through the doors. The scene was chaos. At first she only noticed his injured arm. Dr. Krall pulled her aside and explained everything. She walked to the other side of the bed. The moment she saw the shovel, she completely broke down. Karen begged the doctors to pull it out. They told her if they did, he would die. X-rays showed no free air in his abdomen. His intestines were probably intact. But that wasn't enough. They needed a CT scan to see the internal damage. Worst case, the shovel had punctured his liver or kidney. If they pulled it out during surgery, he could die on the table. Karen held her husband's hand, tears streaming down her face. Jay was wheeled into the operating room. No one knew if he would make it out alive. A simple shovel and one fall put this man between life and death.