impaled through the chest means death?!

Question: Impaled through the chest means death?

i saw this video of 2 men from a foreign country riding a motorcycle, and they were impaled by a pipe that fell off a truck. the passenger was impaled just under the arm. that was an easy operation for the surgeons; they made a big cut down the skin and removed the pipe. the driver, on the other hand, had a big pipe going right across the right side of his chest.. both lived, but how was it possible? shouldn't he be dead from the pipe that surely didn't miss his vital organs?

Answers:

It is possible to survive an injury such as the impalement you describe. It is possible the pipe entered the chest is such a way that it occluded arterial bleeding, acting as both the mechanism of injury and a lifesaving instrument.
Not sure that our "paramedic" friend really is one based on his nonsense answer. Many years in the Emergency Department of a large hospital coupled with experience as part of a Trauma Flight team tells me injuries similar to this can and do happen.

Registered Nurse

You cannot believe what you watch on TV(you get brainwashed)
Depending on the necessity of the actor to the next scene will say whether he dies from a wood splinter in his foot, or the actor can take multiple hits by a big calibre gun through the body and yet live through it all to win the day and tell his life story during that time. That is how real TV is. It isn't.
The right side of the chest has the lung. That is it. Many ex smokers live with one lung.
Usually the "traumatic shock" would kill him, but some are just tough old birds to kill.
For certain, if the head is gone or the heart(which is on the left side), then the dude is dead.

Paramedic

You'd be amazed what you can live through! It depends what organs get hit and how they are damaged.

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impaled through the chest means death?!

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