Woman Narrowly Avoids Getting Impaled by Pole in Woburn, Massachusetts

A metal pole ended up inches from a woman's head in a freak accident in Massachusetts.

Dramatic photos from the Woburn Fire Department show an 8-foot metal pole from a fence smashed through the windshield of an SUV after a crash.

"Thank God she's alive," said Stephen Sawyer, whose wife, Luz, was behind the wheel of that SUV.

Luz Sawyer was on her way back home from a store when firefighters say she had some type of medical emergency and crashed around the corner from her home. She doesn't remember the incident.

"We're not exactly sure what happened, but she went off the road, and she collided with a couple different cars and a fence," said Stephen Sawyer. "The pole from the fence went through the windshield."

"I went up there on my bike and I looked, and the first thing I saw was the pole through the car and I almost freaked out," said the couple's son, Stephen Sawyer Jr. "Then I saw her in a chair with some nice neighbors."

Luz narrowly missed being impaled by it and was grazed by the pole on her arm. It went so far through the vehicle, it stabbed through the backseat and pushed the back door out.

Phil Hardcastle was having a cookout in his yard on Locust Street with his wife and grandkids when she crashed.

The couple says she first hit their son's parked car, at his house next door -- and if she didn't, they're afraid she would have careened right down to the pool, where the kids were.

"He was going to be away today. If that vehicle wasn't there, it would have come into, I don't know if it would have come into the backyard, but that's where everybody was."

"Thank God tomorrow, we're getting up and we're going to go see her at the hospital tomorrow, instead of worse," said Stephen Sawyer Sr.

The victim will spend the night at a local hospital for testing as to why she had a medical emergency. The Hardcastle family says they now plan to put boulders in place of the fence.

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