California IN BRIEF : SAN JOSE : Man Impaled on Steel Rod Recovers

Well-wishers hugged Billy Hernandez at what his mother called a “re-birthday” for the 22-year-old, four months after he was impaled on a steel rod and nearly bled to death. On his actual birthday, Hernandez lay in Stanford University Hospital wrapped in bandages and recovering from multiple injuries. Hernandez was working on the second floor of an unfinished apartment building June 5 when he fell through a sheet of plywood and landed on a steel rod that protruded from the top of a concrete column. The 16-inch bar went through the right side of his neck, mouth and palate and came out through an eye socket, leaving him dangling 10 feet from the ground, bleeding profusely.