[PHOTOS] Man Miraculously Survives 18-Foot-Long Wooden Pole Piercing Through His Body

Li Feng suffered the horrific injury during a highway pileup while driving in the city of Kaifeng in China's Henan province. His truck crashed into another vehicle that was carrying a large load of wood.

"As a result of the accident, several of the wooden poles that were sticking out over the allowed limit from the lorry [truck] in front, speared into the lorry behind and smashed into the cab," police spokesperson Li Wu told the Daily Mirror. "One of them went into the body of the driver who was pinned to his seat."

By then Mr Feng was unconscious and remained under while rescue crews cut the lorry's seat out of the cab and took him and the stake to hospital.

He was taken to the hospital with the wood still piercing both sides of his body. It took a marathon four-hour operation for medics to safely remove the wood and doctors say Feng is now expected to recover.

They have described his condition as stable, but say he is likely to remain in hospital for several weeks to make sure there is no sign of infection.

"The only risk now is that we may not have removed all of the dirt and fragments of wood or material that may have been forced into his body," Doctor Chung Peng told the Mirror. "If no infection sets in during the next few days, we expect him to make a full recovery."