ladder yesterday, Police said.

And firefighters were nearly called into the operating room at King Edward VII Memorial Hospital to help surgeons cut the rods away.

The woman, who Police said was at least 70-years-old, was picking pawpaws when she fell from a ladder at Garthowen Estates on Middle Road in Devonshire, a Police spokesman told The Royal Gazette .

She landed on steel reinforcing rods that were being used to support plants, a Bermuda Fire Service spokesman said.

Two rods went into the woman's back, and one went right through her, he said.

The twisted metal rods, which have a three-quarter-inch diameter, are normally used in construction to reinforce concrete.

Firefighters, who were called to the scene just before 4.30 p.m., used hydraulic cutters to shorten the rods at the scene. But "she was transported to hospital with both rods inside her,'' the Fire Service spokesman said.

At 5.20 p.m., firefighters received a call from the hospital "to assist with cutting the rods some more in the operating theatre,'' he said.

Four firefighters brought a cutting tool and were at the hospital clad in caps and gowns when the surgeon said their help would not be needed after all.

After surgery, the woman was believed to be in serious condition in the hospital's intensive care unit.