Original article here:

Everybody who works at the fair has a story, they say, and every scar tells one. Dan Weaver starts his story like this:

“I should be dead.”

Weaver was working an old cable-run Ferris wheel on Aug. 25, 1978, at 11:05 p.m., across the street from a Catholic church. About 12 kids were on the ride.

The wheel was coming around when he saw a loose angle iron, just dangling there, and he had just enough time, he said, to try to knock it back up so it would clear the metal base of the ride. Then, he said, he would shut off the ride and get it fixed.

The angle iron was about a quarter-inch thick and about 8 feet long and was painted-white steel.

It went in just to the right of his belly button.

Came out his back.

Just missed his spine.

It pinned him to the metal base like a butterfly on a board…

Ew. Can’t believe they published the picture in a family newspaper, but WTH…