One day last year, a 33-year-old Oregon man picked up a nail gun and put it to his head.
Just what drove him isn't clear. Personal problems, mental illness and methamphetamine all probably played a role.
He fired. And fired again. And again. Twelve times.
Six nails clustered between his right eye and ear. The heads caught on the skull; the points pushed into the brain. He shot two nails below his right ear, four more through the left side of his face. At some point, he reloaded: Eight of the finishing nails measure 11/2 inches, four have 2-inch shanks.
A day later, he went to a small Oregon hospital. He said he had a headache.
Doctors saw nothing strange, at first. None of the nails stuck through the skin, and hair covered most of the pinpoint wounds. Then they took X-rays.
Astounded, the doctors gave him a tetanus shot and put him on a helicopter to OHSU Hospital. There, surgeons peeled back his face and removed the nails with pliers and a high-speed drill. Doctors gave the man antibiotics and psychiatric treatment. Twenty-five days later, he walked out of Oregon Health & Science University a little weak but, physically, healthy.
Doctors say his case is extraordinary: He is the only person known to have survived after having so many foreign objects embedded in his head.
"At this point, he's made a full recovery," said Dr. G. Alexander West, the neurosurgeon who led the team that pulled out the nails. "This guy was blessed in some way. I mean, that's incredible really."
Because of medical privacy laws, doctors have not identified the man who put 12 nails in his skull. The man declined to publicly discuss his story, telling OHSU officials he is working to recover and doesn't want to risk his job. But he gave OHSU doctors permission to write about the injury and surgery in the current Journal of Neurosurgery.
