1/17/2005: Man nails himself without knowing

Sweets sends along this obvious one for today: a week ago this gent hit what he thought was the back of his face with a nailgun. But he didn't realize what happened...

Six days later he went to the dentists' office for what he thought was a toothache. This is what they saw on the X-ray - a four-inch nail, entered through his lips, lodged behind his eye, and just short of his brain. He went into surgery to remove it, which was successful. Four milliseconds to put the nail in, four hours to take it out.

He plans to go back to his construction job but will use a simple hammer from now on.

full story

Glad you posted this one, I read about it today and still can't decide if it's a hoax. A couple of thoughts here:

Since he's bandaged around the top of the head, do you think they took the nail out that way, perhaps just drove it through or drilled through from the top. I once read in Ripley's B or N about the light keeper who drilled a hole in his head to put in a candle I would have thought a hammer or a pair of Vice Grips would have done the trick.

The caption I read somewhere said the nail gun backfired, but having used a variety of them I can't see how that could happen, I mean the gun can only shoot the nail straignt out since the mechanism, air piston, etc is behind it. Could it have bounced off whatever he was nailing and then hit him? And what the heck was he doing, yawning or something.

And how the hell could you just think you had a toothache. The nail obviously didn't hit any brains because he has none. He gives the framing profession a bad name.

Oh and I always wondered how Dental Implants were put in...

It stated that it did go one and a half inches into his brain. Yet I also read that it missed his brain. Gotta love the differences in news stories I try to rely on the information from the Associated Press.

Thanks for posting this!

Edit: I am wondering tha same thing, how the heck did it go straight up if it just backfired? I'm no exoert with nailguns, but wouldn't it need to be at an angle to where his mouth was completley open, or shot through the bottom of his jaw? This just baffles me as being an "accident".

I heard about this on the radio this morning, and how it was explained was that as 1 nail came out, a 2nd backfired, and went thru the roof of his mouth. I was hoping someone would be discussing this here, but the IOTD X-ray is even better. I have seen a nail gun in use up close, tho not used one myself. I am sure there are different models, but couldn't for the life of me figure out how A) a 2nd could "backfire" due to the safety mechanisms, and B) how one wouldn't notice the obvous blood this would create upon entering the skull, no matter WHERE, and not to mention the OUCH factor...He's damn lucky this didn't get horribly infected, gross...

I'd guess the second nail wasn't a "backfire" at all -- rather, when the thing kicked up from the first misfire and hit him, his finger was on the trigger and he accidentally fired another one normally right into his skull.

Negligible blood, as the nail sealed the hole it made fairly effectively.

While I agree I can't imagine how you could get nailed and not know it, I can see where a second (or third) shot can result from use. I worked construction during the summers in high school and there were many times that more than one nail came out and there were even cases where the safety on the front of the gun (you have to have it pressed against something for it to fire) would not function and you could spray nails if you wanted to or were clumsy. I also had a nail gun fire a nail through two 2x4s on edge with the nail bouncing off the concrete slab and hitting a board on the other side....those guns can certainly be dangerous....

all that said, this guy must have been sucking on the end of the gun for this to happen...

Bah, they can't "backfire"...there is only one way that nail can come out of the gun unless it explodes. That's like saying a second bullet came out of the back of the pistol.

I picture the following;
Like most guys he keeps the trigger pulled and used the safety shoe to fire the gun on contact. Those guns, especially the framing (4"nail) guns, are pretty heavy, so the easiest way to hold them when you're not shooting is to let your arm hang down or hold the gun upside down balancing on your hand. It's the same position you would hold a pistol to have it pointing straight up in the air.
Now two things;
One, the gun being heavy you'd give it a pretty good jerk to get it up to that position.
Two, it ends up being right next to your head.

I can easily picture him jerking the gun up and smacking himself in the mouth with it. It hurts like hell...it's embarrassing...and it might bleed a little.
Any shot to the head is a little disorienting and I can see where he might not know the gun went off when he smacked himself.

OR...he doesn't want to admit he was shot by a jealous husband.

Iwanted to post here, BUT NO!!!!!!!!!
Bruce said every damn thing I was gonna say.
Either this dude was really drowning in pride, or, tremendously stupid.
I hope if I ever drive a four inch nail halfway thru my head I would know it or at least look at someone and say HELP!
If we trace this guy's family tree, he's most likely related to Deputy Fife.
"You beat all, you know that?"
They do still drug test construction workers, don't they?

I can just imagine the quote next to that picture of him, "No shit Thelma, this nail was in my heaaad" (think a real southern accent here...)

Once again, this smacks of:

"Hey, watch this!"

This story was in every newspaper here in Belgium! So it will be real, but how he did it? Well , ive seen even stranger things, dont you guys? So safety or not, backfire or not, it can happen! Only with the weirdest first!! Over here they give an explanation about bumping into something while working and holding the gun under his head...with his mouth wide open?? Thats a cool little snack while workin...

The TV news claims he said he thought he'd hit himself in the face with the back end of the gun. That reinforces my theory;

So how did the tip go in first if the gun backfired? The nails are loaded tip down. To enter tip first he would have to be pointing it at himself.

The other troublesome thing is the position relative to the eye socket. It looks to me to go right through the middle of the eye socket. Eyes are big, they fill the socket.

I also don't see any indication that the nail is embedded in any bone, it looks to be laying over the top of it rather than in it. That would put it up through through the cheek and you'd feel it. You also wouldn't get the nail head up in bone without shattering it imo.

I just read the title to this thread a little differently (tired this morning) and it became the punchline for a joke something like:

What happened when someone told this guy to go fuck himself, he did, and then forgot about it.

Nailguns can fire nails in rapid succession if the trigger is kept depressed and the user is bouncing the nose off the wood. A not uncommon "misfire" is for a second nail to shoot out, hit the head of the first nail and go ricocheting off in some randomn direction. Usually the second nail will be bent if it does this, but it's possible that this guy got hit with a ricochet.

I remember hearing about a death a couple years ago where a guy was holding a nailgun by his side with the trigger depressed. This is all too common. Only thing is that he was on the edge of a roof, next to a ladder he had just climbed. His brother was following him up the ladder and depresses the "safety" shoe on the gun with the top of his head. Gun immediately fires into the skull of the brother. Dead.

A couple people get killed by them each year. I'm surprised in this day and age that the companies haven't been litigated out of business. America has, I beleive, the highest rate of home ownership in history today, in part because of the nail gun and cost savings it passes on.