Arizonans kind of take cacti for granted, but the rest of the nation still seems to find them weird -- weird enough that a 16-foot cactus landing on a man gets attention from "Ripley's Believe It or Not!"
William Mason, a worker with the city's utilities department, was checking out a leak in a Yuma subdivision last year, when the 16-foot saguaro fell onto him and pinned him to the ground.
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-Yuma City Employee Crushed by a 16-Foot Cactus
Mason was out there with other workers, who helped get the cactus off of him, and get him medical attention.
Mason's back and legs were pretty severely injured, and he was in intensive care at the Yuma Regional Medical Center for several days, according to a city spokesman.
There were also 146 cactus spines stuck in him.
The folks promoting Ripley's annual book of weirdness, Dare to Look!, tell us Mason's featured in the "body" section of the new edition, along with "giraffe women" who voluntarily stretch their necks to more than a foot long, but it's not in the same section as the guy who clipped 161 clothespins to his face, which is filed under "feats."
The Yuma Sun did a follow-up story on Mason's rehab after the cactus incident, which mentions that some of the spines were still in his skin a month later.
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