A work day at a construction site in Duchang County in Southern China was anything but ordinary for a female Chinese construction worker who was standing on a wooden plank. Wu Xingxian, 42, nearly fell to her death after the wooden plank broke and she plummeted 20 feet before a steel rod pierced through her left thigh, stomach, chest, and exited at her neck. Severely injured and unaware of her impalement at the time, she remained still as coworkers approached to help her.

“I didn’t know a steel rod had gone into my body. I just felt there was something on my neck and I tried to touch it. When people told me a steel rod had gone right through me, I didn’t dare move anymore and I felt quite scared. I thought I was going to die,” Wu said, the Daily Mail reported. Wu was immediately rushed to the No. 1 People's Hospital in the city of Jiujiang to undergo a five-hour operation in an effort to remove the rod.

By the time the “human kebab” reached the hospital, she fell into a coma, which doctors would later see as a blessing in disguise. “If there had been any movement, the patient's arteries would likely break and the patient would die instantly from massive blood loss,” said Dr. Yuan Xiangyang, who led the operation, Yahoo! News reported. According to Xiangyang, the steel rod was 2 meters long (about 7 feet), and almost penetrated the whole length of her body.

“It looked pretty bleak. The rod had caused severe internal damage and was also right next to her heart," Xiangyang said. The medical team did not expect her to survive what is usually a fatal injury. Although Wu is known as the “human kebab,” as she was skewered by the steel rood, she is also known as an “extraordinary woman” to Xingyang and his team. The 42-year-old woman is expected to make a full recovery if she avoids infections.