Danie de Wet has a bizarre souvenir: a 2m crowbar which pierced most of his torso - entering between his legs, passing through his ribcage and exiting high up through his back, near his left shoulder blade. Miraculously, the 34-year-old engineer survived, in part because the industrial crowbar missed most of his vital organs."There was a calmness over me and I just closed my eyes and prayed," said the father of three on Thursday.His brush with death came earlier this year when he and his team were 3.5km underground, dealing with mud blockages in the deepest shafts of Sibanye Gold's Driefontein Mine in Carletonville in Gauteng.De Wet has now fully recovered and spoke of the dramatic rescue mission for the first time this week.The seven-time Comrades Marathon runner said he felt no pain after slipping off a suction pipe and onto the crowbar.A horrified colleague radioed for help, and when other miners arrived, De Wet, fully conscious, told them he would have to sit on the stretcher because the position of the crowbar prevented him from lying down.The team carried him some 400m to the nearest cage - or lift - and hoisted De Wet out of the mine via via a host of shafts and sub-shafts.He finally reached the surface about three hours later - with the rescuers having to slow the ascent down to avoid decompression sickness.Luckily for De Wet, paramedics met him when he came out of the deepest shaft and gave him morphine, so he remembered nothing more until he awoke in hospital two weeks later. The crowbar, commonly referred to as a gwala, missed De Wet's heart and spine. However, his left kidney was crushed, one of his ribs was injured, and his bowels were badly damaged.Carel Britz, a member of the rescue team, said: "It was a hell of shock to see one of your friends like that. The possibility of him not surviving ... it is running through your mind."De Wet was taken straight to Netcare Milpark Hospital in Johannesburg, one of only two hospitals in South Africa able to treat severe trauma cases.Milpark's director of trauma, Professor Kenneth Boffard, said the medical team were not prepared for the length or thickness - a diameter of 2.5cm - of the crowbar."When he came in we saw the length of this thing and that was the first time it was quite clear how long [it was]."Boffard said the six-member surgical team initially operated for only 60 minutes to remove the crowbar, De Wet's left kidney, 30cm of his bowel, and repair some blood vessels."Damage control is all you want to do in the initial phase," Boffard said.The engineer was given a little time to recover before the team operated a second time, spending about two and a half hours reconstructing or repairing all the internal damage.De Wet, who intends running next year's Comrades, plans to present the gwala to Boffard this week...