Trapped and Injured: How an American Tourist’s Daredevil Climb at the Colosseum Turned Into a Nightmarish Ordeal
How A Tourist Became Impaled On A Fence In Rome
The incident occurred on Friday, May 2, around 5 p.m., according to Italian newspaper Il Messaggero. The American tourist, who currently resides in Taiwan, had presumably been trying to get a better view of the Colosseum when he decided to climb a fence in Piazza del Colosseo.
As he scaled the metal fence, he fell and was then skewered by the sharp spikes at the top. According to the report, the man then began screaming as he lost a great amount of blood. He continued to scream in pain until he lost consciousness, still dangling from the fence.
Paramedics quickly rushed to the scene to find that the man had suffered a severe lower back injury. Emergency responders sedated the man and then carefully removed him from the spikes and applied a tight bandage to his wound.
Fucina Artistica BorangaThe man suffered a devastating injury to his lower back.
“It was terrible,” one tourist told Il Messaggero in Italian. “I saw that man impaled on a railing and he couldn’t free himself.”
It took paramedics roughly 20 minutes to detach and stabilize the man, after which he was taken to Rome’s San Giovanni Hospital in critical condition. There, he underwent emergency surgery, receiving 80 stitches to close the wound.
The man was also reportedly unable to speak for several hours after the incident. Two days later, he was questioned by Italian law enforcement.
A twist in the story, however, came a day after initial reporting.
A Colosseum Spokesperson Denies The Incident
Anil Öztas/Wikimedia CommonsThe Roman Colosseum, which was built in 72 C.E., in 2024.
On May 6, Hyperallergic published an article claiming a spokesperson for the Colosseum denied that any such incident had occurred, calling the widely-reported narrative “fake news.”
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