When Wyoming ski instructor Natty Hagood completed his first run of the day, he became aware that he was carrying a little more luggage than he started with.
It was then he realised there was a tree hanging out of his face.
The 29-year-old was tackling the slopes at Jackson Hole Mountain Resort, with his room-mate and a visitor from our of town, when he tried to "bash between trees" and cut it too close.
He emerged with a souvenir - a 45cm branch that entered just below his lower lip and exited through the corner of his mouth.
Natty Hagood cut the branch back to a manageable length before return down the mountain. Photo supplied.
"I thought maybe my chinstrap got pushed up into my face, so I tried to brush it off and that's when I felt the stick," he told Idaho State Journal. "So, I shook left to right and saw the stick moving in my peripherals.
"I reached out and grabbed it and wiggled it, before realising it was pretty far in there."
"Holy crap, I just got impaled," he recalled. "And then I yelled over to Pete, 'Hey look I got a new piercing'."
The good news - Hagood said the impalement happened so quickly, there was very little pain and before heading back down the mountin, he snapped the limb back down to a manageable 15cm.
"Ski patrol was all like, 'You're crazy, man'."
The real pain set in once he reached hospital, where the branch was extracted, 15 stitches inserted and the most excruciating part - a $US1500 bill.
Hagood quickly raised the required funds through a Go Fund Me account to "please help me pay for my new lip".
Happily, he emerged little the worse for wear and with new nicknames on the theme of "Lipstick" or "Sticky".
"When I laugh, I have to hold the left side of my face down at this weird angle that makes me look like this crotchety old man," he said. "And I droll more than I used to."
