An American tourist’s visit to the Colosseum in Rome took a turn for the terrifying after the man impaled himself on a fence and was left dangling and screaming in pain, while other visitors looked on in horror, according to Italian news outlets.
The gruesome incident took place around 5 p.m. Friday, when the 47-year-old American attempted to climb over a fence in Piazza del Colosseo, presumably to get a closer look at the historic Roman amphitheater, according to reporting by Il Messaggero.
The man fell and was skewered by the sharp metal bars of the fence. He began screaming and bleeding profusely until he became unconscious, the newspaper reported.
An ambulance rushed to the scene, and medics found that the man had suffered a severe injury in his lower back that was preventing him from moving. They administered a sedative before carefully detaching him and applying a tight bandage to the wound.
It took around 20 minutes to detach and stabilize the tourist, according to Il Messaggero. He was then taken to a local hospital in critical condition. He underwent emergency surgery and received 80 stitches to close the wound.
“It was terrible,” a tourist told the newspaper in Italian. “I saw that man impaled on a railing and he couldn’t free himself.”
The man’s identity has not been released, but he is reported to also be a resident of Taiwan, according to Il Messaggero. The man was unable to speak for several hours but was questioned by Italian law enforcement on Sunday, the outlet reported.
Although this may have been the bloodiest incident involving American tourists at the historic monument, it is far from the first.
In 2015, two California women, ages 21 and 25, were arrested on suspicion of carving the letters “J” and “N” into a brick wall inside the Colosseum and then posing for selfies in front of their handiwork. They were charged with aggravated damage to a building of historical interest.
In 2021, two American men, ages 24 and 25, were fined approximately $900 each for breaking into the Colosseum before dawn to drink beers inside.
The Colosseum dates back to 72 A.D. and was the largest amphitheater in the Roman Empire, a place where thousands gathered to watch gladiators fight. Today it is a UNESCO World Heritage Site and visited by millions of tourists a year.
This story originally appeared in Los Angeles Times.
