The use of the radial artery as an access site for diagnostic and interventional cardiac procedures has been extensively developed in recent years as a result of reduced complications at puncture site, reduced costs and the improvement in the patients' quality of life. The complications of trans-radial procedures are rarely major and very rarely life threatening--a key benefit of the radial approach. We describe the case of a patient who underwent percutaneous radial artery angioplasty, because of perforation caused during diagnostic cardiac catheterisation, in order to complete the catheterisation procedure before the patient proceeded to endovascular treatment of a sub-renal abdominal aortic aneurysm.