A construction worker in China has survived after being impaled by seven steel bars which burst from a machine.
The man had to endure a nine-hour journey from the Fujian province to a hospital in Hangzhou, some 390 miles away, to undergo surgery.
The photograph was taken during the first phase of a five-hour operation to shorten the steel bars.
Under the supervision of medical staff, his co-workers held the bars with pliers while a firefighter used a steel carving machine to cut them.
Doctors provided medicine to the man, and used salt water to lower the temperature of the bars.
After they were shortened, the worker was moved to an operating room where they were removed.
The man, who has not been named, was working on a bridge construction site when the accident happened on Monday afternoon.
