Man shoots nail into chest and lives

Link : http://uk.news.yahoo.com/041020/80/f4wnv.html


SYDNEY (Reuters) - An Australian man building a shed accidentally fired a nail into a major artery near his heart but survived after emergency surgery, medical officials have said.


The 7.5 cm (three inch) nail had lodged in the 35-year-old man's aorta, the body's main artery leading from the heart, said a spokeswoman for John Flynn Hospital on the Gold Coast in the tropical northern state of Queensland.


She said the man was saved after a 12-minute helicopter flight to hospital for emergency surgery and would certainly have died if treatment had been delayed any longer. She said he was in a stable condition in the intensive care ward.


"I've spoken to the cardio-thoracic surgeon and basically he just took the nail out...he doesn't even know how he did it yet," the spokeswoman said, referring to the mystery over how the victim fired the nail into his chest.


The man, whose name has not been released, was using a nailgun to build a shed on his property at Canungra, about 70 km (45 miles) south of Brisbane, when the accident occurred on Wednesday, an ambulance official said.


The man, with the nail embedded in his chest, drove about 400 metres (1,312 feet) back to his home and became unconscious while his wife called for help. Few other details were available.


The hospital and ambulance service said they had never heard of any similar cases before.