Crazy college stories are a dime a dozen these days, but most tales do not even come close to that of Michael Maley’s encounter with a campus fence on Sunday, Dec. 8. The freshman had just completed the Nearly Naked Run, an event in which students strip down to their underwear and run across the campus. Maley was dressed in a cutoff flannel shirt and short shorts in the 20-degree weather as he walked back toward the South 40 post-run.

A group of friends with whom he was walking next to the Danforth University Center parking lot encouraged him to help a lady in the lot who seemed to be having issues with her car tire. Maley concedes that, although he claims to have little knowledge on cars, he hoped he could be of some assistance. Rather than spend time walking around the side of the parking lot to find the entrance, Maley decided to try hopping the fence, but his boot slipped along the edge of the metal railing, and the pointed tip of one of the rods in the fence pierced the upper portion of his left leg. Maley found himself stuck upside down, with the tip of the fence wedged 6 inches into his thigh.

Though shocked, Maley did not panic or scream out. “I guess I was jacked up on a combination of shock endorphins and there were a bunch of people around, so I wasn’t going to start crying,” Maley explained. “But I did insist on my friends talking to me about other things than the fence in my leg to help distract me.”

Fortunately for Maley, the fence missed an artery in his leg so he was not bleeding profusely or in life-threatening danger. However, the position in which he was stuck forced him to remain upside down for about 20 minutes. Friends William Wysession and Ethan Rinchik, both freshmen, helped support Maley’s body on top of the fence and keep him calm. Maley stayed this way until the Emergency Support Team arrived and interrogated him and his friends to see whether he’d been drinking. (He hadn’t.)

Despite the alarming circumstances, Maley tried to make light of the situation and even claimed that it was really a great abdominal workout for him to keep the pointed edge of the fence from moving deeper into his leg. When the paramedics finally arrived, they sawed off a section of the fence, taking both Maley and the surrounding chunk of fence into the ambulance.

“As I was getting carted off, I yelled out for someone to help the lady who was still having problems with her car.” Maley said. “I was kind of out of the question, you know, since my leg had just gotten impaled.” Maley was rushed to the hospital, accompanied by his resident advisor, junior Jason Silberman.

Although Maley told the paramedics that his pain was only a two or three on a scale of 1-10, they insisted on providing him with painkillers immediately. At Barnes-Jewish Hospital, the remaining portion of the fence still inside Maley’s leg was removed, he was given 10 stitches and he remained in the hospital to recover overnight.

In an effort to find humor after this freakish accident, Maley and his doctor tried brainstorming more dramatic stories to explain how he had been impaled by a fence. “We decided that a three-horned unicorn stabbed me and lost one of his horns,” Maley explained.

Maley was able to walk the following day and returned to school wearing a hospital gown and carrying the spike as a trophy. His floormates on the fourth floor of Danforth House welcomed him back with a card and homemade goodies. Since it was finals week, normal classes were not in session, meaning that Maley did not need to walk a great deal immediately after the surgery.

When Maley returned to his home in the suburbs of Chicago for winter break, he had quite a story to tell to his high-school friends. He had great support from his mother and younger brother, and his grandmother even made him a pair of pajama pants with one leg cut short in order to allow him easy access to the gauze over his wound, which he needed to change frequently. Although Maley says the area still feels a little bit numb, he has very limited residual pain.

Reflecting back on the situation, Maley recalled, “I tried to get the doctor to say that the reason I had survived was because of my thunder thighs. That fence is lucky it missed my cankles—it wouldn’t have made it through them.”