New Zealand trucker, Steven McCormack, blows up “like a balloon”

A trucker from New Zealand, Steven McCormack, said he blew up "like a balloon" after an air hose pumped air into his body at 100 pounds a square inch.

McCormack was standing on his truck's foot plate when he accidentally fell between the cab and trailer of the truck, breaking a compressed air hose. The hose pierced the man's buttocks and began pumping air into his body, BBC reports.

McCormack, who was at Opotiki on the North Island, told local media he began "blowing up like a balloon."

"I felt the air rush into my body and I felt like it was going to explode from my foot," he said, as reported in the Associated Press.

The co-owner of the trucking company Robbie Petersen told AP that McCormack's co-workers heard his screaming and rushed to the scene to stop the air flow and then send the trucker to the hospital in Whakatane.

McCormack, 48, arrived at the hospital with swelling and fluid in one leg. The air had separated his fat from his muscles, and the pressure caused his lungs to fill with fluid, but the air had not entered his bloodstream, according to doctors.

A hospital spokesman told AFP McCormack was lucky to be alive.