"I feel fine" says George Chandler, after a 2.5" nail was removed from his brain last Friday.Friend, Phil Kern, was helping the 60 year old build a deck on the back of his Shawnee, Kansas home when the cord to the pneumatic nail gun he was using became entangled in a children's toy. The device discharged as Phil worked to get the knot undone. The pair looked for the rogue projectile, but found nothing. Then George said he felt a "sting" on the top of his head. The two tool men put two and two together and Phil spotted the metal fastener planted in his chum's cranium.
Phil told George to sit down and called 911. He was awake and alert the whole time. "It never did really what you call hurt" explained George. The operator told Phil to leave the nail in his noggin and wait for the ambulance. So George just sat their and waited for the ambulance with his hat stuck to the left side of his head. You know, because it was nailed there.
Upon arrival at Overland Park Regional Medical Center, George was told that his injury wasn't serious and put in the waiting room. When George's number was
finally called, the Docs on duty failed to dislodge the nail with the tools on hand. The ER Dr. then made an unusual request. "He looked at me and said, 'I need a claw hammer,'" tells Chandler . "I thought, Ah, he's just teasing." I can't imagine what was going through George's head, besides the nail I mean, when a maintenance worker showed up with a hammer. "He got a screwdriver at the same time, and he took the screwdriver and pried the nail up a little bit and got the claw hammer..."I'll leave it at that. True story though. George says he has a headache, but is otherwise well. According to family, if the nail had entered George's head a mm lower, it could have left him blind, unable to speak and/or paralyzed.
HGTV Tip Of The Day: Use an old fork to hold a nail while hammering to protect fingers from being smashed. Start at home.
Brains are so weird! That one guy with the huge spike that went through his head lived a good long time afterwards but became a real jerk I heard.
ReplyDeleteYou mean Phineas Gage?
ReplyDeleteI meet with people like that every now and again. Brian injuries are different every singe time. It’s really weird. The physical and cognitive damage is something you’d expect. The emotional and behavioral changes aren’t. It can be pretty scary.
Oh crap, you don’t have a nail gun at home, do you?
Ha! No I don't have one. I'd like one b/c it could make a lot of my projects take a fraction of the time but I don't like the electric ones and I can't stomach paying for an air compressor. And if I did get an air compressor, I'd have to get more tools that run on air. It's this whole big thing. I have used a cement nail gun in my basement though that uses little 22 shells. Pretty cool.
ReplyDelete