[Faline]

A carpenter in Argentina who was accidentally shot in the heart with an 8cm nail has miraculously survived.

The 19-year-old, who has not yet been named, was rushed to hospital in Buenos Aires last week after the bolt was unwittingly fired by a colleague into his chest.

He had been working at a wooden pallet factory in the Cañuelas area when the accident occurred.

A shocking X-ray image released today clearly shows the deadly device piercing his heart chamber.

He underwent two hours of ‘major surgery’ at El Cruce Néstor Kirchner Hospital.

Doctors decided not to remove the nail immediately as it was ‘acting as a stopper and preventing a haemorrhage’, said the hospital’s executive director Arnaldo Medina.

Instead, Dr Marcelo Nahín told La Nacion newspaper: ‘In the operating room, we proceeded to open the breast bone very carefully.



‘[This is] because there was a risk of hitting the nail and enlarging the heart wound.

‘With the nail visible, we performed a manual removal of the foreign body, which was embedded in the anterior right ventricular.’

Dr Nahín said yesterday: ‘The patient has recovered well and he is now off the ventilator.’

Mr Medina added that only three people in the world had ever survived such an injury – in the US, Australia and Poland.

But this was the first time they had ever seen it occur in Argentina, and he added: ‘In these cases the previous experience of the medical team is very important.’

And Dr Nahín warned about the dangers of nail guns, by saying: ‘They are powerful and easy to operate as they increase productivity.

‘But they are also responsible for around 37,000 visits each year to emergency rooms in hospitals in the US.’

[Spiffyfable]

Good for him.... I guess

[Sharon]

Lucky lad to survive that

Weird how they put major surgery in quotes!!

[GlassToTheArson]

Holy hell, thumbs up indeed

[CuriousOne]

Wow, he is a lucky bastard. Love the doctor! That's actually pretty cool =)