Trucker Falls on Compressed Air Hose and Becomes a Human Balloon – Really

Yes it really can happen.  We see it in animated cartoons all the time.  Cartoon characters get pumped up to giant size by inhaling a lot of air.  Now we know the same thing can happen to people, because it happened to a man in New Zealand.

A New Zealand truck driver says he inflated just like a balloon when he fell onto the fitting of a compressed-air hose that pierced his buttock and forced air into his body at 100 pounds per square inch.

Steven McCormack was standing on his truck's foot plate Saturday when he slipped and fell, breaking a compressed air hose off the air tank that powered the truck's brakes.

He fell hard onto the brass fitting, which pierced his left buttock and started pumping air into his body.

McCormack says he felt the air rushing into his body, and he felt like he was going to explode.  "I was blowing up like a football," he said. "I had no choice but just to lay there, blowing up like a balloon."

McCormack's co-workers turned off the air flow and rushed him to a hospital. Doctors say he was very swollen when he arrived, but he'll recover because the high pressure air flow didn't get into his bloodstream.

McCormack says his skin felt "like a pork roast" — crackling on the outside but soft underneath.

via Trucker a human balloon after falling on compressed-air hose | News Bizarre | Chron.com - Houston Chronicle.

We don't mean to make light of what happened to McCormack, but we can't help but wonder what would have happened if his coworkers had just stuck a pin in him.