Impaled man ‘out drinking not stealing’

A suspected museum thief who was impaled by a sharp spike on the top of a security fence in his rectum for two hours earlier this month says he did not feel any pain because he was drunk. He denied trying to break into the museum, but claimed he had been in the museum grounds to sleep off a drinking session.

Speaking from the Cambridge West home, in South Africa, he shares with his parents and siblings, Siyanda Pasiwe, 32, said he had been drinking somewhere in town that evening.

But because it was late and he was drunk, he decided to go into the museum grounds to sleep it off before walking home. “I woke up and decided to continue walking home, but when I saw a tree I thought I would be able to jump to the other side,” he said.



When he fell on the fence he did not feel the spike piercing his bottom and thought the fence had an electric force that was holding him to it . “I thought that the electric fence had a mechanism to keep me glued to it,” Pasiwe said.

Fire and rescue workers used an angle grinder to cut the steel spike off the fence.

Medical staff at the hospital, where the spike was removed, said Pasiwe had suffered severe rectal and intestinal injuries .

There are more graphic photos here.