A 51-year-old man was left rectally impaled after his folding chair collapsed beneath him and part of the frame penetrated his anus, his treating doctors report.

The man sustained a common iliac vein injury from the impalement wound, causing haemorrhagic shock.

In their case report, his surgical team wrote that this was the first documented case of conservative management of such an injury, adding that the patient’s stable haemodynamic status justified the approach.

The accident happened in the man’s home in Japan, where a family member found him an hour later “immobile and covered in blood” in his bathroom.