• We have updated the guidelines regarding posting political content: please see the stickied thread on Website Issues.

It's All In Your Head (Objects Piercing Or Embedded In One's Head)

Mighty_Emperor

Gone But Not Forgotten
(ACCOUNT RETIRED)
Joined
Aug 18, 2002
Messages
19,408
For news on people who get stuff jammed in their head (knives, nails, etc.).

Surgeons Remove Chopstick From Man's Face

Mon Nov 17, 4:21 PM ET

Add Strange News - AP to My Yahoo!

KUALA LUMPUR, Malaysia - Malaysian surgeons treating a man for an eye infection said they were surprised to find part of a chopstick embedded in his face — the result of an assault five years ago.


Doctors at a government hospital in the northern city of Ipoh said they found the section of a wooden chopstick lodged in tissue between his eyes during exploratory surgery to remove an unknown foreign object, the national new agency, Bernama, reported.

Dr. Gurdeep Singh Mann, the hospital's senior eye, nose and throat specialist, said the man, Ng Keng Choon, was lucky to be alive because the chopstick had been nudging against his brain.

Ng, 30, a carpark attendant, was beaten up five years ago by attackers who threw a shroud over his head. But he didn't seek medical attention until recently, when he developed an eye infection that left him unable to move his right eye, Gurdeep said.

"Someone stabbed him with the chopstick after covering his face with a gunny sack," Bernama quoted Gurdeep as telling reporters in Ipoh. "A portion of the chopstick broke and was stuck across from his right eye to the left eye near the nose, and touched the brain."

"If the stick had gone another half-centimeter (0.2 inch) deeper, he could be dead," he said.

Doctors detected a foreign object in Ng's face and he underwent surgery on Oct. 29, when they found the piece of chopstick and removed it in a one-hour operation which Gurdeep described as routine — except for the nature of the object.

"We have checked medical journals and found out that this could well be the first time in the world where a chopstick was found inside a patient's face," Gurdeep said.

Ng said that after the initial attack, he had no pain or other clue that there was a lasting injury, until the infection developed.

"I really didn't know there was a chopstick in my eye," Ng said. "I am feeling better now."

Source
 
This is an impressive article worth quoting in full which says that items jammed into the head tend to resut in miraculous lucky escapes -my only quibble is the claim about the eyeball I have seen an awful lot of the large object in head TV shows and if the object enters from behind the eye then it tends to force it out of the socket and the eye escapes too.

And it didn't even hurt...

This man has a pneumatic drill through his neck. How on earth did he survive? Amazingly, it's not just a question of luck, says Ian Sample

Tuesday December 2, 2003
The Guardian

Spend time listening to surgeons and you might get the impression that there are some extremely lucky people among us. "It doesn't get any luckier in life than this," a German doctor commented last week after operating on Harry Moeller, a builder whose pneumatic drill flipped out of his hands, somersaulted into the air and skewered him clean through the neck. He cracked jokes on the way to hospital and apparently felt no pain.

Cases of such unbridled good fortune abound. "He was extremely lucky," a Grimsby-based surgeon remarked having completed an operation on an 11-year-old boy whose game with a snooker cue ended abruptly with the tip of the cue protruding from his stomach and the butt jutting out from his scrotum. Then there was Ron Hunt of California, who in September became known as the "Miracle Man" after he fell face first on to a powerdrill, forcing the 18in bit into his eye and out through his skull. Lady luck, it seems, is keeping herself busy.

Of course, in all of these cases, the surgeons simply mean that the person involved was lucky to survive. Despite the grotesque images released by hospitals, people get away with all sorts of stomach-churning injuries. In freak accidents, suspiciously often, the penetrative object, be it a drill bit, snooker cue or whatever, goes in one place and out another, severing neither vital arteries or nerves on the way, and leaving entire organs unscathed. Every time, it is a close shave though: "If it had been a few millimetres either way, it would have been fatal," or so the phrase goes. But why do some people get all the luck? The truth is that they don't.

"The stories always say it's been a near miss, but that's nonsense most of the time. It often doesn't matter where the thing goes," says Christopher Bulstrode, professor of orthopaedics at Oxford University. "The basic rule, which always surprises me, is that if it goes in slowly enough, it pushes important things out of the way." That is why major arteries and nerves always seem to be so perilously close to whatever it was the patient got rammed into them. They were simply nudged to one side."

The body's ability to shrug off what appear to be horrendous injuries is largely down to arteries and nerves being so elastic and slippery. Bulstrode recalls a case some years ago in which a group of builders were mucking around with a new digger on a gravel heap. The builder sitting at the digger's controls somehow managed to bat his colleague with the steel bucket at the end of the digger's arm. Moments later, the builder was dangling 10ft in the air, both thighs impaled on the bucket's steel teeth.

At first, attempts to get the man down failed, so eventually, the teeth on the bucket were sawn off and the builder was sent off to hospital with them still embedded in his legs. In the operating theatre, Bulstrode and his team removed the teeth, and then checked to see how much damage had been done. "To my amazement, there wasn't a single nerve or artery damaged. The teeth had gone right through both legs and just pushed everything out of the way," he says.

Such supposedly lucky outcomes are neither uncommon nor new. In the second world war, pot shots taken across the trenches led to countless "close shaves" as bullets just missed major blood vessels. Again, in many cases, they were just pushed out of the way. "By the time the bullet got to the other trench, it wasn't actually going that fast," says Bulstrode.

Organs have a tougher time avoiding injury, though some are better than others. Because it is reasonably mobile, the stomach often fairs well in accidents. The liver is much less mobile though and suffers because of it. In car crashes, it is common for the liver, one of the heaviest organs in the body, to tear itself from the blood vessels that hold it in place.

It is not just stretchy, slippery blood vessels and nerves that can evade damage by being nudged out of the way. The American surgeons who removed the drill bit from Hunt's head in September said that the damage he suffered was relatively minor only because the bit pushed his brain aside rather than going straight through it.

Sometimes, the brain isn't able to get out of the way, though, and when it takes a direct hit, luck does play a part. In 1997, newspapers carried horrific x-ray images showing a five-inch knife embedded to the hilt in a woman's head. Alison Kennedy received the shocking injury when she was attacked by a man on a train while visiting her sister in Surrey. Although the knife went deep inside her brain, it became lodged roughly along the line that divides the twin hemispheres of our brains, missing a lot of vital brain tissue. The amount of brain damage was relatively minor, considering the wound. The knife also stopped just short of the brain stem, which lies at the base of the brain. Damage the brain stem, and death is almost certain: it controls your breathing and tells your heart when to beat.

The brain is a hotch-potch of areas that range from being so sensitive that the slightest knock will cause serious damage to so apparently redundant that you would hardly notice if they weren't there. The tiniest amount of damage to certain outer regions of the cortex, a layer of brain roughly above your ears, for example, can cause permanent paralysis to a part of the body. But damage parts of the frontal lobes, and you might not notice. "The frontal lobes only do a bit of emotion. You can scoop out tonnes of the stuff and it doesn't seem to make much difference," says Bulstrode.

The worst injuries are often caused by things going into the body extremely fast. High-speed bullets cause far more damage than conventional bullets because they are going so fast that arteries and nerves are simply severed rather than nudged out of the way. They also cause shock waves that multiply the damage. "The shock wave literally tears the tissue to pieces," says Bulstrode.

Even slow-moving objects can cause horrific damage if they hit the wrong spot though. Arguably the worst at avoiding injury is the eye. "Although it's well buried in the skull, there's nowhere for it to go, so it can't move aside if something pushes on to it," says Bulstrode. Though Ron Hunt was considered lucky for not dying of his drill-induced injuries, he lost an eye where the drill bit entered his skull. The hands are also particularly bad at avoiding damage. Because all the tendons, nerves and blood vessels are so tightly packed in, cuts to the hand can easily damage these tissues.

Despite its weaker spots, the body seems well equipped to take the kinds of injuries we are likely to sustain. "The human body has to be, and is, extremely resilient to injury," says Bulstrode. "It's absolutely staggering what it can put up with."

http://www.guardian.co.uk/health/story/0,3605,1097643,00.html

I also enjoyed how blaise the surgeon is :)

Emps
 
'Record' op saves knife victim
By Venkitesh Ramakrishnan
BBC correspondent in Thiruvananthapuram


Surgeons in India have performed an extraordinary feat by safely treating a woman who arrived at hospital with a 15cm blade embedded in her face.

The woman had allegedly been stabbed in the face by her husband - said to be an alcoholic.

Doctors in the town of Thiruvananthapuram in the south Indian state of Kerala spent an hour discussing how to remove the blade, before embarking on a five hour life-saving operation.

They believe the procedure has broken the record for removing outsized objects lodged in a human face.

Their report on the operation has been forwarded to several international medical journals.

The woman is thought to have received the injury when her husband struck her face with a 25cm knife.

An initial examination revealed that the 15cm blade had pierced the face below the right nostril and reached the base of the right ear.

The sharp edge of the knife was almost touching the root of her jugular vein.

Multi-disciplinary approach

Dr RC Sreekumar, the assistant professor of surgery who led the operation, told the BBC it was an extremely perilous procedure.

"If we had removed the knife in a hurry, the jugular vein would most certainly have been cut, resulting in instant death."

Dr Sreekumar and a team of specialists - including a general surgeon, an ear, nose and throat specialist and a dental surgeon - spent an hour consulting each other on the best way to proceed.

They decided to remove the knife in two parts - first the handle, then the blade.

The removal of the blade sparked internal bleeding - but the doctors staunched the flow by tying up a carotid artery.

Dr Sreekumar says the medical team's multi-disciplinary approach and detailed preparation helped save the woman's life, without seriously disfiguring her face.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/south_asia/3513673.stm

23/02/04
 
Very strange:

Needles stuck in brain for 29 yrs

From correspondents in Beijing

March 5, 2004


DOCTORS in China have successfully removed three sewing needles embedded in a man's brain for nearly 29 years, state media reported.

The man, surnamed Guo, and his parents had no idea how the needles got into his head, but doctors who performed the unusual operation said someone likely stuck them through a membranous space in his skull when he was a baby.

"It's not possible for a needle to penetrate the skull otherwise, because the skull is extremely hard," Xinhua news agency quoted Zhang Zhiqiang, one of the neurosurgeons at the 999 Hospital for Brain Diseases in southern Guangdong province, as saying.

Guo only found out about the needles only after an X-ray in 1994 for a brain injury. Since then, he has travelled to several cities trying to find doctors who could help him remove them, but no-one dared carry out the surgery.

"They simply told him it was too risky, and he should just ignore them if they were not making him too uncomfortable," Zhang said.

But Guo was determined to see the back of them.

"I was about to enter college that year and was a top student, but I worried so much about the needles that my grades dropped rapidly, and I ended up attending a junior college, instead of one of the top universities I'd always dreamed of," he said.

Guo went to the 999 Hospital in February and doctors agreed to operate.

During the two-and-a-half-hour procedure Wednesday, they "fished" the needles out of Guo's brain using a new "navigation system," which includes a microscope and a magnet.

"Two of the needles were four centimetres long and the third was three centimetres," said Zhang.

One needle was stuck in a major blood vessel, which made the operation extremely difficult, Zhang said.

"It could have caused a hemorrhage and even endangered the patient's life, so we broke the needle in half before taking it out," he said.

The patient was lucky to escape a potential hemorrhage and infection inside his brain, as well as serious nervous system problems such as epilepsy, the doctors said. He has remained in normal condition since the operation.

http://www.news.com.au/common/story_page/0,4057,8878701^13762,00.html
 
Needles stuck in brain for 29 years

DOCTORS in China have successfully removed three sewing needles embedded in a man's brain for nearly 29 years, state media reported.

The man, surnamed Guo, and his parents had no idea how the needles got into his head, but doctors who performed the unusual operation said someone likely stuck them through a membranous space in his skull when he was a baby.

"It's not possible for a needle to penetrate the skull otherwise, because the skull is extremely hard," Xinhua news agency quoted Zhang Zhiqiang, one of the neurosurgeons at the 999 Hospital for Brain Diseases in southern Guangdong province, as saying.

Guo only found out about the needles only after an X-ray in 1994 for a brain injury. Since then, he has travelled to several cities trying to find doctors who could help him remove them, but no-one dared carry out the surgery.

"They simply told him it was too risky, and he should just ignore them if they were not making him too uncomfortable," Zhang said.

But Guo was determined to see the back of them.

"I was about to enter college that year and was a top student, but I worried so much about the needles that my grades dropped rapidly, and I ended up attending a junior college, instead of one of the top universities I'd always dreamed of," he said.

Guo went to the 999 Hospital in February and doctors agreed to operate.

During the two-and-a-half-hour procedure Wednesday, they "fished" the needles out of Guo's brain using a new "navigation system," which includes a microscope and a magnet.

"Two of the needles were four centimetres long and the third was three centimetres," said Zhang.

One needle was stuck in a major blood vessel, which made the operation extremely difficult, Zhang said.

"It could have caused a hemorrhage and even endangered the patient's life, so we broke the needle in half before taking it out," he said.

The patient was lucky to escape a potential hemorrhage and infection inside his brain, as well as serious nervous system problems such as epilepsy, the doctors said. He has remained in normal condition since the operation.

http://www.news.com.au/common/story_page/0,4057,8878701%255E13762,00.html
 
[coment that had to be comming]DIY accupuncture is not a good idea[/coment that had to be comming]
 
Excellent use of the term 'dill' in a newspaper headline:

DIY dill shoots nail into brain

By Sue Hewitt
March 7, 2004

BRAD Shorten admits he is a fool who is lucky to be alive.



He was skylarking with mates over a few beers and took what he thought was an empty nail gun and pointed it at his head.

The Victorian father of three fired a 3.2cm nail through his skull into his brain, just behind his temple.

A centimetre deeper and Mr Shorten, 33, could have been dead or paralysed.

The Sunbury bricklayer's labourer thought the firing mechanism had glanced his skin, leaving a small red dot, not realising the nail had been counter-sunk into his skull.

Mr Shorten said he had used the nail gun to install wall panelling in his home, but had turned off the compressor and removed the nail cartridge.

"My mates and I were talking about construction site accidents and taking your eye out with a nail gun, and I foolishly put the gun to my head and pulled the trigger," he said.

Although the compressor was disconnected, there was still pressure in the hose and it shot the nail into his skull.

"The nail was recessed into the skull, just like it is recessed into the timber," he said.

Mr Shorten had minimal pain, but started to feel light headed. His son, Nathan, 13, insisted on calling an ambulance.

"At hospital the pain got worse, and I was getting frustrated so I asked (nurses) for a pair of pliers to pull it out myself," he said.

That would have been the worst thing to do, according to Dr Kevin Siu, a Royal Melbourne Hospital neurosurgeon.

Dr Siu said there was a risk that removing the nail would cause a blood vessel to hemorrhage, possibly causing death.

The surgeon said had the nail been a centimetre deeper or had it been angled backwards, Mr Shorten risked a stroke, permanent brain damage or paralysis.

In a four-hour operation, a specialist team took a part of his skull off and removed the nail.

Mr Shorten said he was recovering from surgery and was expected to make a full recovery.

"I did a very stupid thing," he said.

The Victorian Injury Surveillance and Applied Research unit has found a growing trend of people, mainly men, injuring themselves doing stunts or tricks. In the six years to December 2002, 82 people suffered such injuries.

Sunday Herald Sun

http://news.com.au/common/story_page/0,4057,8895332%5E13762,00.html
 
Builder Survives 6 Nails In Skull

Builder survives nailgun accident

A construction worker has miraculously survived after six nails were embedded in his skull.


Isidro Mejia, 39, was rushed to hospital after his nailgun accidentally went off, shooting nails into his head.

Newspaper reports say doctors at Providence Holy Cross Hospital in Los Angeles had feared for his life when he arrived.

But Mr Mejia is now out of intensive care and doctors expect him to make a full recovery.

Surgeons removed the six nails over the course of five days.

"Four of the nails were embedded in his skull," said hospital spokesman Brian Green.

"Another was in his spinal column. Surgeons worked round the clock to take the nails out one by one.

"It was a very delicate process and was not completed for five days.

"The neurosurgeon who operated on Isidro could not believe he was still alive.

"With injuries like that, he should have been dead. He has been taken out of intensive care and although still groggy and on medication is expected to make a full recovery.

"His wife and family are obviously delighted that he survived and are looking forward to getting home," he said.

According to the reports, police have launched an investigation. However, they believe it was a bizarre accident.

"His colleagues said Isidro was using a nailgun that has both manual and fully automatic settings," said deputy sheriff Dan McPherson.

"It appears he slipped and fired into his skull."

Story from BBC NEWS:

Published: 2004/05/05 12:45:06 GMT

© BBC MMIV
 
Playtime proves dangerous for Madison boy

10:22 PM 5/27/04
Lisa Schuetz Wisconsin State Journal


Attention adults: Stern warnings to children playing with sticks must extend beyond the usual "You could poke an eye out with that!"

Madison parents Kelly Starr-King and Andy King would add, "you could poke a hole in your skull." Their son Gary's recent ordeal after a seemingly innocuous wounding was no joke.

Since a May 3 incident, the 11-year-old has undergone a CT scan, two MRIs, a four-day hospital stay, a three-week course of intravenous antibiotics and anti-seizure medication and numerous doctor visits.

Gary's injury began with typical child's play.

As Gary tells it, he and friend Harrison Silvers were playing with 4-foot-long orange fiberglass rods - the flexible rods have myriad uses including holding flags to mark fire hydrants during winter. <

The boys initially used the rods as weapons in a mock sword fight. Then the boys moved on to the javelin throw.

Harrison's last effort took an unexpected turn. Gary tried to duck, but the blunt end of the rod hit the hairline above his right eye.

And there it stuck.

Gary reached up and pulled out the rod, buried about a quarter of an inch deep in his head. Harrison urged his friend to hurry and wash the wound, which was steadily dripping blood.

Harrison's mother called Starr-King, co-owner of Drake and Co., at work. At first, the mothers knew only that a stick to the head caused the wound. The wound was cleansed and glued closed at an urgent care clinic.

But when the parents heard the whole story from a heartbroken Harrison and saw what he called "the incriminating" rod, they realized the injury was more serious.

"When you have a foreign body enter the skull, an abscess can form," said UW Hospital's pediatric neurosurgeon Dr. Bermans Iskandar. "You can trap articles from the scalp like skin or hair that's dirty. And if a (blood) vessel is injured, you may not be aware until a blood clot forms and it becomes life-threatening."

A visit to Gary's pediatrician, Dr. Gail Allen, the next day included an X-ray. She sent Gary to UW Hospital for a CT scan to get a better look at the damage.

The CT scan verified it - the rod had punctured both layers of the skull and the protective lining around the brain and bruised the brain.

The neurosurgeon on call recommended surgery to clean the wound, check for skull fragments and examine the bruising - or they could check the boy into the hospital for heavy doses of antibiotics and hope for the best.

"I looked over and Gary waved to me, wanting me to come over. When I bent down to him he put his arms around me and whispered, 'Am I going to die?' " Starr-King said. "He was pretty upset."

That night he was admitted to the hospital while his parents considered the options. The next day, Iskandar took his first look at Gary. He leaned toward hospitalization because the boy still seemed to be doing fine.

"I saw him two days after the injury," Iskandar said. "The first few hours can determine if he is going to have an infection. What you do after that is not going to be that helpful. But if he ended up with an abscess in two weeks, we would have felt badly that we had not operated."

Gary was discharged several days later. Starr-King gave her son four shots, three times a day for the next two weeks. He had an MRI on May 13 and another Thursday that "shows the area of injury to have decreased in size significantly," Iskandar said, happy with the boy's results.

It'll be three months before Gary is completely in the clear. He'll continue to take the anti-seizure drug through August when he'll have his final MRI.

Gary said he's through with plastic rods forever. He'll stick to Nerf toys.

And he doesn't blame his friend, not one bit. "It could easily have been the other way around," Gary admitted.

His parents look forward to putting the ordeal behind them - but not too far behind.

"Since he's been back to school, he's been acting like a normal 11-year-old kid. He knows he was lucky," said Andy King, waving one of the rods. "And if he doesn't, we'll remind him."

This is a tricky one as the actual page:

http://www.madison.com/wisconsinstatejournal_local/75208.php

but the Google cache still has it:

Source
 
'Harpoon attack' jury deliberates

A jury which cleared a man of deliberately firing a scuba harpoon at a teenager is considering its verdicts on two further charges.
Reading Crown Court acquitted Nathan Kirk, 25, of causing grievous bodily harm with intent after a brawl in Thatcham, Berks, in 2003.

The jury is now considering charges of causing grievous bodily harm and possession of an offensive weapon.

Mr Kirk, of Upper Inkpen, Hungerford, denied all charges.

During the trial at Reading Crown Court, the jury heard how Mr Kirk was stabbed close to his heart in a fight with the 15-year-old and two older men outside his girlfriend's flat.

He subsequently went into the property and returned with a scuba gun.

During the brawl, it was fired and became lodged in the 15-year-old's face.

The youth's injury was so serious that he lost an eye and paramedics had to use bolt-cutters to remove the three-pronged harpoon from his face.

Defence lawyers said the gun was fired by accident after he had acted in self-defence, fearing further life-threatening attacks.

link with x-ray pic
 
I don't know about anybody else but what is it about these stories that absolutley fasinates people, i have only just found this thread and have been reading through the stories with a mixture of horror and complete fasination. I just like to ask everyone, when reading these stories have you like me found yourself holding the part of your body thats being talked about or cringing and even reading the story through your fingers. I know that may sound weird as i am not squimish at all but i don't even know i'm doing it until i have finished the article and find my body has been twisted as if avoiding an errent snooker cue, nail, speargun, JCB spike or whatever it is that people find sticking out of there bodies.
 
i think facial injuries attract particular attention because the face is such an important part of one's body image. it's the first part of a person's body that you look at (unless you're male and the person you're looking at is female and busty!), and obviously it's the part of a person you remember, so everybody dreads a facial disfigurement because it will completely change the way people think of them.

of course injuries to the brain can change a person in ways you could never imagine, so i think they are also especially frightening.
 
That x-ray of the harpoon in that boy's head is astonishing. It is a wonder he survived. Interesting to note that the man who fired the harpoon gun had already been stabbed close to the heart prior to him firing the gun in apparent self-defence.
 
Afghan girl in Japan for surgery


A 13-year-old Afghan girl reported to have a bullet lodged in her head for eight years has arrived in Japan for life-saving medical treatment.

Fatema Safar was hit during a gun battle in Kabul, her family say, as the hardline Islamic Taleban movement took control of the city.

Doctors say a 3cm bullet (1.2in) is embedded near the top of her nose.

It is corroding and could kill her unless it is removed, according to the Tokyo-based charity helping her.

Fatema has been admitted to hospital and will be operated on next Wednesday.

She has been suffering from chronic headaches since she was shot, and has lost the sight in her left eye, a spokesperson from the charity, Aid for War Orphans in Asia, says.

"I am very grateful to the Japanese people for bringing me here," she said, according to the charity.

Fatema, who is accompanied by her mother, is due to stay in Japan until September.

Aid for War Orphans in Asia helped raise the 8m yen (,000) needed to pay for her operation there, as no neurosurgeon was available in Afghanistan, AFP news agency reported.

The bullet was only discovered when Fatema had an X-ray last May, the agency says.

She is not expected to regain her lost vision.



BBCi News 22/07/04
 
It's all in your neck?

There doesn't seem to be a *right* thread for this. Mods: move as you see fit. -lopaka



Florida boy survives arrow in neck

Friday, July 30, 2004 Posted: 6:07 PM EDT (2207 GMT)

WEST MELBOURNE, Florida (AP) -- A 7-year-old boy fell on an arrow and was impaled in the neck, narrowly missing his jugular vein, officials said.

The father of the boy, whose name was not released, drove him 30 miles to a fire station for help. The boy was hospitalized in stable condition after Thursday's accident and was expected to survive, the Osceola County Sheriff's Office said.

The boy fell while holding the arrow and playing in his backyard in rural central Florida, his father told paramedics.

After piercing his neck near the jugular vein, the arrow nearly passed all the way through to the boy's spine, said Lt. Dave Hover of the Brevard County Fire Rescue's Station where the boy went for emergency treatment.

Firefighters cut about 6 inches off the arrow so he could be flown to an Orlando hospital.

Copyright 2004 The Associated Press.


http://www.cnn.com/2004/US/South/07/30/boy.impaled.ap/index.html
 
Man impaled in head by steel rod

A man is undergoing emergency surgery after an 8ft (2.4m) steel rod pierced his eye and became stuck in his head.

The accident happened at 0320 BST on Tuesday as he worked overnight at an Argos store in Foster Square, Bradford.

Firefighters had to cut the rod down to 3ft to allow an ambulance crew to take the 30-year-old to hospital for the emergency operation.

The man was conscious throughout his ordeal, a West Yorkshire Ambulance Service spokesman said.

Story from BBC NEWS:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/1/hi/england/west_yorkshire/3695918.stm

Published: 2004/09/28 06:15:44 GMT
© BBC MMIV

:cross eye
 
Man Impaled by 6-Inch Hook Through Skull


Dec 2, 5:19 PM (ET)

SAN ANTONIO (AP) - A 6-inch hook was embedded in a man's skull in an accident at a heavy equipment dealership Thursday, but he was in stable condition despite still having a portion of the hook in his head, authorities said.

Rescuers needed about two hours to free the hook from the front-end loader it had been attached to at Holt Caterpillar, then flew the man to University Hospital. Rescue workers said the man was conscious and talking.

Holt is the largest U.S. Caterpillar equipment dealer and sells, rents, leases and services new and used Caterpillar equipment, engines and generator sets in stores stretching from the Rio Grande to the Red River, many located along the Interstate 35 corridor.

The men's identity wasn't released.

Source
 
Woman Survives Being Impaled by Metal Rod


ANDERSON, Ind. (AP) - A woman survived being impaled by a 12-foot metal fence post that pierced through her mouth and came out the back of her neck in a car accident, authorities said.

Emergency crews had to saw off part of the 1 1/2-inch thick fence rail to free Alejandra Martinez, who was still awake when crews arrived at the scene. Fire officials were shocked to find her alive.

``Talk about having an angel as a co-pilot,'' Fire Chief J.R. Rosencrans said. ``On her rearview mirror she had a picture of the Madonna. You can tell she is a religious person.''

Martinez, 28, was in critical condition late Monday, recovering from surgery, officials said.

Earlier Monday, Martinez drove through a stop sign at an intersection and hit another car, Anderson police spokesman Terry Sollars said. She then lost control, careened off the road and went through a chain-link fence.

The car hit a concrete porch, shoving it three feet back, Sollars said. The metal rod from the fence went through the driver's side of the windshield, he said.

A passenger in the back seat was not injured.

Anderson is about 35 miles northeast of Indianapolis.


12/07/04 06:26

© Copyright The Associated Press. All rights reserved.

Source
 
The end of a similar report on the above:

Anderson Fire Department Battalion Chief Larry Towne said he was shocked to find Martinez alive and awake.

“Talk about having an angel as a co-pilot,” Fire Chief J.R. Rosencrans told The Herald Bulletin. “On her rearview mirror she had a picture of the Madonna. You can tell she is a religious person.”

Towne said Martinez was in shock but calm.

“She never complained, whined, didn’t hardly say anything. That helped to keep the air around the scene calm.”

An emergency room doctor treated Martinez while fire crews tried to extricate her, police said.

Her daughter, Elizabeth Diaz Martinez, said she, her parents, brother and sister moved to Anderson more than two years ago from Mexico.

Source
 
Headache nailed

Seoul - Anx-ray showing a 5cm nail stuck in an unidentified South Korean patient's skull. A Seoul hospital said the man had complained of severe headaches. They speculated that the nail had been in his head for four years, although he never knew it. Surgeons have removed the nail.

Source

Also
 
Man Finds Nail in Skull Six Days Later

By ERIN GARTNER
LITTLETON, Colo. (AP) - A dentist found the source of the toothache Patrick Lawler was complaining about on the roof of his mouth: a four-inch nail the construction worker had unknowingly embedded in his skull six days earlier.

A nail gun backfired on Lawler, 23, on Jan. 6 while working in Breckenridge, a ski resort town in the central Colorado mountains. The tool sent a nail into a piece of wood nearby, but Lawler didn't realize a second nail had shot through his mouth, said his sister, Lisa Metcalse.

Following the accident, Lawler had what he thought was a minor toothache and blurry vision. On Wednesday, after painkillers and ice didn't ease the pain, he went to a dental office where his wife, Katerina, works.

``We all are friends, so I thought the (dentists) were joking ... then the doctor came out and said 'There's really a nail,''' Katerina Lawler said. ``Patrick just broke down. I mean, he had been eating ice cream to help the swelling.''

He was taken to a suburban Denver hospital, where he underwent a four-hour surgery. The nail had plunged 1 1/2 inches into his brain, barely missing his right eye, Metcalse said.

``This is the second one we've seen in this hospital where the person was injured by the nail gun and didn't actually realize the nail had been imbedded in their skull,'' neurosurgeon Sean Markey told KUSA-TV in Denver. ``But it's a pretty rare injury.''

Lawler was recovering Sunday in the hospital, where he was expected to spend several more days.

Despite his lack of medical insurance and hospital bills between $80,000 and $100,000, Katerina Lawler said her husband is in good spirits.

``The doctors said, 'If you're going to have a nail in the brain, that's the way you want it to be,''' she said. ``He's the luckiest guy, ever.''


01/16/05 16:37

© Copyright The Associated Press. All rights reserved.


http://cnn.netscape.cnn.com/news/story. ... 481025.htm
 
I like this guy's explanation:

Man Impaled By Steel Hook Thought He Was Going To Die

Industrial Accident Leaves Victim Blind

POSTED: 7:12 am CST January 28, 2005
UPDATED: 9:23 am CST January 28, 2005

SAN ANTONIO -- Wayne Gail Creek will never forget the morning of Dec. 2, 2004.

Creek was at work at Holt Cat, removing a bucket from a backhoe, when something went wrong.

The bucket turned over, hitting Creek in the face. A large, steel hook attached to the bucket pierced his left temple and came out near his right eye.

"I could see my glasses break," Creek said in an exclusive interview with KSAT 12 News.

Creek said the hook then broke his teeth.

Led by a trauma surgeon, a rescue team rushed to the scene at 3302 S. W.W. White Road and delicately cut a piece of the hook so Creek, who was conscious but sedated, could be transported to the hospital.

The hook was later removed from Creek's head.

"'I think I'm going to die,' was what I thought," Creek said. "But then, I didn't want to, though. I was going to fight it all the way."

Creek spent 17 days of his seven week-stay at University Hospital in intensive care.

The accident left Creek blind, but he said he's learning to adjust.

"I'm trying not to let it get to me," he said. "Just take it a day at a time. Realize that this is how it's going to be."

Creek said his family and his faith will help him move on.

"We know there's a God," said Barbara Creek, Wayne's wife. "If it wasn't for God, we wouldn't be sitting here together today."


------------------
Copyright 2005 by KSAT.com All rights reserved.

Source

One could argue that if God was going to step in and save his life he might have been better off to intervene slightly earlier and stop the hook impaling his head.
 
Man finds mystery nail in his neck

Feb. 8, 2005 — Talk about a pain in the neck.

Steve Villagomez, a 29-year-old football coach in California, thought he injured his neck during a football practice this past summer and visited a doctor. An X-ray revealed he had what appeared to be a metal object lodged in his neck.

Having no idea how metal would get in his neck, Villagomez thought the diagnosis must be incorrect and ignored it.

"I thought, there's no way," he said Tuesday on "Good Morning America." "I didn't believe the pictures."

The Magnet Test

Fast forward to October, when Villagomez was telling some of his fellow coaches about the bizarre X-ray. The head coach, whom Villagomez describes as a "real joker," suggested putting a magnet to his neck to test the diagnosis.

Villagomez took the head coach's advice and began experiencing pain in his jaw and neck, so he visited another doctor, who confirmed the original diagnosis. Villagomez had a foreign object lodged in his neck and was referred to Dr. Paul Yun, an ear, nose and throat specialist.

A Rusty Nail Is Extracted

Yun was stunned when he examined Villagomez's X-rays. "I thought it was a joke, some sort of gag," Yun told "Good Morning America." "It was a very strange X-ray."

After convincing Villagomez he should have the object removed, Yun operated and extracted a nearly two-inch-long rusty nail from Villagomez's neck.

Despite the fact that the nail could have been lodged in his neck anywhere from six months to several years, Villagomez had experienced no pain or complications from it, outside of the incident during the summer.

"It looks like it could have been there a few years," said Villagomez. "I just never noticed it."

Yun says Villagomez was extremely lucky the nail was lodged where it was. "It was probably the only place in his neck it could hide without causing any problems," he said.

Medical Mystery

The most baffling part of the incident is that Villagomez says he has absolutely no idea how the nail got there.

--------------
"I have no clue," he said, though he added that he worked at an equipment rental store nearly a decade ago. "The place I used to work used to rent out nail guns, but I never got hit with one."

Yun said there is no way Villagomez could have swallowed the nail and also has no explanation for how it may have gotten in his neck. "I hadn't seen anything like that before," he said.

The story, though mysterious, ends well for Villagomez. The surgery to remove the nail was straightforward — he is healing and has experienced no complications.

An added bonus is that Villagomez has become a minor celebrity among middle-school students he coaches and his 9-year-old son, who all think the nail is extremely cool.

Source
 
Five inch knife found in man's head

Hospital staff treating a retired school teacher for a headache found a five inch knife blade wedged in his head.

A headteacher from Poland went to the doctors suffering from a headache, following X-rays hospital staff found a knife embedded in his head /Freelance

The discovery was made after doctors X-rayed Leonard Woronowicz to see if he had cracked his skull in a fall while climbing over a stool in his kitchen four days earlier.

Instead they found a blade that had penetrated the 61-year-old's head just below his right ear. It had snapped off at the handle without touching any major blood vessels or nerves - or causing any lasting damage.

He said: "I thought they might give me an aspirin, instead they pulled a five inch knife blade out of my head."

Woronowicz, from the Polish town of Wojnowice, said he had tripped over the stool while doing work in his kitchen.

He said: "I had some tools and other gadgets scattered on the kitchen floor where I had been doing the work when I tripped. The blade from the kitchen knife must have pierced my head then. My head hurt a bit, but I was convinced that it was from the fall. There was a small gash on the side of my head near my ear, but I thought it would soon heal and did not make much of it. I put a plaster on it and left it."

He added: "I didn't even guess what had happened when the next day I wanted to cut a piece of bread but couldn't find the kitchen knife. Despite carefully searching the room I could only find the handle. But I forgot about it as my headaches got worse over the next few days, and I decided to go to a hospital."

Local doctors were bewildered at the sight of the X-ray pictures and immediately called for an ambulance to take the patient to the Bialystok regional centre hospital in Northern Poland.

Surgeons pulled the five inch blade out of his skull in an operation that took just a few minutes. The blade had gone into his head from the side near his right ear.

Dr Marek Rogowski from the Bialystok hospital said a surgeon could not have made a better job of placing the knife so that it missed all vital bones, nerves and blood vessels. He said: "We have found objects in patients' bodies before, but this is unprecedented."

Source
 
As for the story of the needles being in the mans skull for possibly many years, this reminds me of a book I once had that dealt with various cultures and thier "curses & hexes" they used.
Among certain gypsy tribes and even voodoo(vodue) a common way to "curse" someones offspring was to surrepticiously push needles into the soft spot of an infants head,which often resulted in the child not developing normal intelligence ,or being mysteriously and chronicly ill for years or even dying from an infection while still an infant ,depending on whether the needles were treated with some type of chemistry or even just filth.
It ws kept secret for generations and was one of the "family curses" their bloodline could inflict on their enemies.
This was of course done before X-Rays and other advances in medicine had been discoverd.
 
OK I know this is from Pravda but they go one step further than usual and show pictures and what pictures!! Ouch.

Doctors remove kitchen knife from man's face
04/22/2005 16:23

Attempted murder ended only with a small scar on the man's face

A hospital nurse of the Russian village of Zaton heard someone knocking on her door late at night. When the woman opened the door, she could not say a word: her neighbor, Arthur Javanyan, was standing in the doorway. There was a knife sticking out of the young man's head: the blade was plunged in the skull almost entirely. The nurse called an ambulance immediately.

An hour later the young man was lying on the operating table with a group of surgeons around.

"It was an absolutely extraordinary incident. The extraction of the knife from the man's head could result in abundant bleeding, but we could not hesitate or keep on thinking of all variants that we could use for the operation. The blade of the knife was ten centimeters deep underneath the eye. It pierced through the zygomatic bone and rested against the back of the maxillary sinus. Such a wound posed a real threat for purulent maxillary sinusitis to develop," chief surgeon of the local hospital, Viktor Tolstenko said.

It took about 40 minutes for the unique operation to last. When everything was over, doctors said that Arthur had been born under a lucky star. "If the 35-centimeter long knife had gone right in the eye and damaged facial nerves, it would have led to lamentable consequences. All that Arthur has now is just a little scar on his cheek," Dr. Tolstenko.

The horrible incident happened at night, when Arthur was sleeping. The day before Arthur had a meeting with a friend of his, whom he had not seen for several years. Arthur invited him to his house and the men had a little alcohol. As the men were talking, Arthur's friend started complaining of bad life and never-ending troubles. Arthur told the guest not to hurry and work harder for things. The friend apparently did not like the advice, and the conversation took the form of a squabble.

Arthur cleaned the table and went to bed. An hour later he woke up because of terrible pain.

"At first I could not understand anything. I turned the light on, came up to the mirror and my jaw dropped with horror. I rushed to see where my friend was, but he was not in my apartment," Arthur said.

The young man is not going to file a police report against his treacherous friend. He said that he would settle scores with him later.

Source
 
17 years later, man has bullet removed from head

Associated Press
May. 4, 2005 07:30 AM

DETROIT - It is no longer technically correct to refer to Chuck Smith as Bullethead. The warehouse worker from Detroit picked up the nickname after being shot in the head by unknown assailants while changing a tire in the summer of 1988. He left the chunk of lead lodged against his skull when a doctor said it would not pose a danger.

"I just didn't see a need to get it out," Smith said.

But Smith, now 41, had the .22-caliber bullet removed last week, after experiencing recurring headaches, numbness and tingling for several days.

Doctors inserted needles to anesthetize him before extracting the slug, which came out flattened and black and slightly smaller than a pencil eraser.

"That bullet felt better going in than coming out," Smith said, smiling.

Source
 
OK its "that paper" but this is pos. the most believeable report they've had in awhile:

Doctors remove a skewer from woman's head

05/04/2005 15:50

Some Russians found it really hard to indulge in the joint celebrations of Russian Easter and the 1st of May holiday. Some people had to face the dire consequences.

A woman showed up at a hospital's emergency room in the city of Perm, in the eastern European part of the Russian Federation, seeking medical attention. The doctors examined the 30-year-old woman and found a "foreign body" i.e. a shish kebab skewer sticking out of her head. She also had an open cranial injury on her head.

After the woman was treated for injuries, she told the doctors that an incident had happened to her while she and her companion were barbecuing in the forest. Her companion accidentally stuck a skewer in her head as he was throwing skewers in a nearby tree. The guy was apparently trying to impress the lady with his adroitness. The police is checking on the circumstances of the case.

Not long ago Pravda has reported about a man with a kitchen knife in the face, which was successfully removed by Russian doctors leaving just a little scar on his cheek.

Source
 
Those things can be a bitch. I mean when it happens, it could be more risky to remove it than to leave it in there, but over time they move around.

At least he knew about it. The ones where they had no idea how or when they got shot are really freaky.
 
He was skylarking with mates over a few beers and took what he thought was an empty nail gun and pointed it at his head.
"At hospital the pain got worse, and I was getting frustrated so I asked (nurses) for a pair of pliers to pull it out myself,"


I feel sorry for our Australian cousins....
Invite Steve"Croc Botherer"Irwin to this bloke's party and you'll get rid of both of them at once...
 
Back
Top