I still cannot believe I am alive. I fell from such a height, and a rod went through my body. I thought I would die,” said 33-year-old construction worker, China Kumar, who survived a rare and life-threatening impalement after falling nearly seven storeys at a construction site in Ambernath, Thane.

A metal reinforcement rod entered through his left buttock, passed through his pelvis and lower abdomen and exited through the front abdominal wall. He also suffered an open fracture of the left femur, extensive soft-tissue damage, and haemorrhagic shock.