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A man was fatally impaled through the face by a fence in a horrific scene police are calling an accident.Authorities say the 30-year old man fell 20 feet from a tree and onto a "pointy" fence on the 500 block of North Berendo Street in East Hollywood. The accident happened sometime late Tuesday night or early Wednesday morning, although it was not reported until about 3:30 a.m. The man's body was almost in a standing position, with his hands on the fence as if they were holding his body up—the fence entered through the left side of his neck or face and exited through the right side. "It looked like a Hollywood scene staged. He was impaled on the fence and couldn't get off of it," Sergeant Melvin Gamble of the LAPD told the L.A. Times. "Over the years you see stuff like this. You still don't get used to it."
The man had climbed into the tree, possibly to retrieve his jacket, and authorities suspect he was drinking while sitting in the tree. About a dozen beer cans were found scattered on the ground around his body, along with broken branches.
According to police the original report was of a possible prowler in the area, but it turned out just to be the body impaled through the fence. KTLA reports he had actually died in front of his own house, and that there may have been a party on the premises earlier that night.
In November of 2012, firefighters rescued a man in the Hollywood Hills who was much luckier. He climbed the wall of a house and impaled his leg (warning: graphic images) on an iron fence, but was cut free.
Update (10:35): The coroner has identified the man as Edwin Ochoa, according to City News Service. Neighbors told the police that Ochoa was known as a "heavy drinker."
