Paraglider who crashed left with tree branch sticking out of shoulder

Warning: Graphic content

A paraglider was skewered by a giant splinter after crash landing in a forest.

Extraordinary pictures show how a tree branch impaled 36-year-old Ivan Krasouski, from Belarus.

He was flying near the village of Loshany close to Minsk when a strap snapped and he lost control, plummeting into a forest.



A sharp log spiked his shoulder as he crashed, the Daily Mail reports.

Rescuers cut him free from the wreckage of his powered paraglider and took him to hospital, with the giant log still embedded in his shoulder, say reports from Belarus.

He posed for pictures as he waited to have the branch removed by emergency ward medics. Doctors later freed him from the giant splinter.

The paratrike pilot told local media he had crashed into some pine trees and at first he didn't realise he had been impaled.

"I'm thinking: 'I fell so softly, all is okay. I'll stand up and go' then something holds me back," he said.

"I looked and it was a giant log there. I tore my shirt and there was a branch in my arm, thick as a watermelon."

Astonishingly, Mr Krasouski retained his sense of humour during the horrific accident, joking that he was like American cartoon superhero Groot.

Groot is a tree-like cartoon which appears in comic books published by Marvel Comics and "Guardian of the Galaxy" movies.

"Many people came. I told them: 'Take out this splinter'. And they say: 'No, are you crazy? If we take it away, you'll bleed to death.' And I was like: 'I am Groot!'" he said.

This article was first published on dailymail.co.uk and is republished here with permission.