Dive Brief:

• Here’s an endorsement for wearing a hard hat on a construction site: A Chinese construction worker who wasn’t suited up found himself with a steel rod in the side of his head on a job site in Xi’an.

• The 32-year-old laborer apparently didn’t know the 5-foot pole was in his skull until he touched his head as he staggered toward his co-workers feeling dizzy and in pain, they told Central European News.

• The rebar reportedly fell from above the worker and struck him in the head. Doctors at a local hospital brought in fire department rescue workers with a blowtorch to help remove the rod, which had become lodged near the patient's optic nerve 1.9 inches inside his skull. A hospital spokesman told CEN it is “a miracle” that the worker survived.

Dive Insight:

The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics has reported that 84% of workers who have suffered head injuries on the job were not wearing hard hats at the time of their accidents. Most of them were working at their usual jobs, and a third of them were injured when they bumped into stationary objects.

They don’t wear head protection, the BLS said, because they find it uncomfortable or too heavy; because hard hats make them hot when the weather is warm; because they don’t equate the gear with safety; and because employers don’t enforce federal and state regulations requiring head protection on job sites.