Sunday, January 22, 2012

Man shoots nail into brain without noticing

A suburban Chicago man accidentally shot a 3.25in (8.25cm) nail into his skull but is recovering after doctors successfully removed it from the centre of his brain. Dante Autullo, 34, was in his workshop when a nail gun recoiled near his head.



But he had no idea the nail had entered his brainuntil the next day, when he began feeling nauseous. Doctors told Mr Autullo that the nail came within millimetres of the area used for motor function. His fiancee, Gail Glaenzer, said that he was in good spirits after the two-hour surgery to remove the nail at Advocate Christ Medical Center in Oak Lawn, Illinois.

"He feels good. He moved all his limbs, he's talking normal, he remembers everything," she said. "It's amazing, a miracle." Ms Glaenzer said she had no idea the nail had entered his skull when she cleaned a cut on his forehead. She convinced him to go to the hospital after he felt nauseous for much of Wednesday.


LiveLeak link.

Mr Autullo thought that the nail gun had simply hit his forehead, but realised later that when the gun came in contact with his head, the sensor recognised a flat surface and fired. While there are pain-sensitive nerves on a person's skull, there are none within the brain itself. Hospital spokesman Mike Maggio said the part of the skull that was removed for surgery had to be replaced with a titanium mesh amid worries that it might have been contaminated by the nail.

2 comments:

Gerry said...

A) The gun 'recoiled'. Into the BACK of his head??? Don't think so....

B) What about the safety switches? These guns CANNOT fire unless held firmly into contact with a surface and the trigger pulled.

Every time one of these stories gets printed I call BS on them....

Insolitus said...

How did that nail in the x-ray get there through his forehead? Spinning and bouncing around? That would surely have left some noticeable damage. I agree, Gerry, something's amiss. But, it isn't unheard of that a nailgun has had it's safety switch overridden for conveniences sake. It's awfully stupid but so are many people.

PS. It's not possible to say he hasn't lost any memories. Nobody but him knows all his memories, and he wouldn't necessarily know if some of them were destroyed.