A truck-driver from New Zealand ‘ballooned' by air hosepipe

A New Zealand truck driver who fell on a condensed air pipe that penetrated his buttock has survived being swallowed up like a balloon.

Steven McCormack had dropped between the cab and the trailer of his truck, breaking the air pipe.

The nozzle cut his buttock and started pumping air into his body, which prolonged severely.

As he shouted, Mr. McCormack's coworker turned the air off and put down him on his side, saving his life. The accident was occurred at Opotiki on the North Island on Saturday. Mr. McCormack, who is 48, is still in hospital in the adjacent town, Whakatane.

He said that doctors had told him they were shocked that his skin had not rupture, as the compressed air - pumping into his body at 100lb/sq in - had divided fat from muscle.

I was blowing up like a football... I had no option but only to put down there, blowing up like a balloon”

"I felt the air hurry into my body and I felt like it was going to blast from my foot.  It felt like I had the twists, like in diving. I had no alternative but just to put down there, blowing up like a balloon.

He said his skin suffers "like a beef roast", hard and crackly on the outer surface but soft below. He thanks his coworkers, particularly Jason Wenham who put him on his side, with securing his life.

Mr. Wenham, Ross Hustler and Robbie Petersen had picked up Mr. McCormack off the brass nozzle which was still fixed in his body, and filled ice around his puffy neck until an ambulance arrived.

Doctors placed in a tube into his lungs to exhaust the fluid and cleared the injury in his buttock using what felt to him like a drill. "That was the most burning part," he said.

A hospital spokeswoman told, "It can certainly says, he's fortunate to be breathed, it was a obviously life-threatening condition. Mr. McCormack disclosed that the air was slowly escaping his body in the way that air commonly does.