[b]Pregnant Woman Survives After Getting Impaled[/b]

LONDON (Reuters) - A heavily-pregnant woman has survived being speared through the chest by a wooden stake which narrowly missed her heart and unborn child, newspapers reported on Monday.

Astrid Oates, 20, was impaled on a fence post after the driver of the car she was traveling in swerved to avoid a fox on a Devon road in western England, the Daily Mirror said.

The car smashed through a wooden fence and one of the posts shattered and speared her through her right breast.

``I don't remember much about it and I did not feel the post going through me,'' she told the paper from her hospital bed.

Astrid, a chef from Bournemouth in southern England, said she kept asking rescue workers at the scene about the post in her body.

``They were just telling me to leave it alone. But who is going to listen to that when you have got a stake sticking out of you?'' she said.

Doctors have told the 8-months pregnant woman her unborn child, a boy, is fine and will probably be born naturally at full-term.

She was trapped in the wrecked car for over an hour after the accident on Saturday before firefighters cut away a large chunk of the stake so they could free her.

It took surgeons four hours to remove a remaining six-inch by one-inch spear of wood which was lodged close to major organs.

The car's 38-year old male driver suffered a shoulder injury but was allowed home after treatment.

Come on man, have some respect. She eight months pregnant for Christ's sake![}:D]

Ooh!  [i]That's[/i] gonna leave a mark!

That's gonna leave a mark!

Wouldn't it be ironic if she was one of the protesters who's trying to end fox hunting in England.

Glad all concerned will apparently be OK, but expect a few sore days, I'm sure.

I'd never be likely to swerve to avoid a small animal.   If it's a squirrel, I'll swerve in order to HIT it, not miss!   I really hate those little bushy-tailed rats.   But that's not fair to the rats, because a rat can be a pretty cool (and mild mannered) pet.


CJ