Turkish man injures colleague by pumping air into backside

Pumping pressurized air into a friend's backside is apparently a prank not as rare as many people may think, particularly in Turkey, as seen by the latest potentially fatal incident.

A 42-year-old man, identified as R.H., was hospitalized on April 16, after one of his colleagues, identified as 39-year-old H.?.T., jokingly pushed a pressurized air gun into his anus while working at a plastic factory in the central Anatolian province of Karaman, according to Do?an News Agency.

Fellow workers, including the pranker, took R.H. to the hospital after he collapsed when his stomach instantly filled with air. He underwent an operation at Karaman State Hospital and was still in critical condition at the hospital's intensive care unit on April 17 with partially torn bowels.

Police detained the suspect, who initially claimed the victim had fallen on the air gun accidentally, before admitting to the prank.

Potentially fatal air gun pranks are as old as the tool itself, with one of the oldest examples in Turkey reported in 1962, when a worker in Ankara was seriously injured. Similar jokes continued around Turkey in the 2000s, leading to several injuries.

Pressurized air gun pranks have also resulted in injuries around the world, from Britain to China. In January 2013, a Bangladeshi cleaner in Dubai was sentenced to six months in prison due to a similar prank, according to local media.