I see this happen a lot. I find it hard to believe you wouldn’t have noticed a nail being fired into your skull THROUGH YOUR MOUTH!
Amazing.
How you wouldn’t know that is beyond me. ::shrugs::
A few years ago, my neighbor shot himself with a nailgun through the hand. My immediate supervisor managed to nail all four of his fingers together with one nail, using a nail gun. The ER doc had to get the maintenance guy to get pliers that would pull the nail out.
I’ve never used one, and I probably never will.
Before I went into business, I worked as a framer for a guy who could be counted on to bleed within 15 minutes of arrival.
Other framer nudges me-“Look at that meathead-he’s gonna shoot himself with the nailgun.” I look and yes, he’s messing with the nose safety while it’s still on air. A few seconds later, "AARGH! $%@", and the other framer says, “Told ya.”*
It is not unusual for a head trauma patient to not remember the accident.
Growing up on the mean streets of Scranton, Pennsylvania, my brother and I would occasionally come home with cuts, scratches, and bruises which we could not explain. Mom would ask what happened, and invariably, we would say, “I don’t know.” Then she would ask “How could you not know, didn’t it hurt?” Our response of “Uh-uh” would always elicit the same response, which I will now share with you all.
“No brain, no pain.”
I find it amusing that the doctor claimed it was a rare accident, yet it was the second one he has seen * at that hospital*. Seems rather commonplace to me.
I understand that, but wouldn’t there be some damage to the roof of his mouth that would be fairly obvious?
Believe it or not, I once inadvertently shot myself in the hip with a nail gun, using those small, almost headless finishing nails. When this happened, I didn’t notice (or rather, I might have thought that I bumped the gun painfully against my hipbone or something). It wasn’t until later that evening when I experienced severe pain while walking down stairs that I put two and two together and went to hospital.
Surgeons, given the stature of their profession, should really exercise a bit more tact before making comments like: “Holy crap - there’s a nail in there. How the hell did you manage that?”
Well, the guy is from Littleton…You’ve got to give guys like us, er, I mean, like that, a break.
I remember hearing about that happening here with a nail to the skull. No pain, but his co-worker noticed blood in his hair.
-Tcat
Depends on how long the doctor’s been at that hospital and the lapse between the two injuries. If the doctor’s been there since before nail guns were invented, and there’s been a total of two injuries from nail guns, then it may be pretty rare. If the commenting doctor has seen two nail-gun related injuries at that hospital since he started working there last week, it might be quite common.
I saw the X-ray of this guy’s skull in the paper. There really are no words…
…except that there’s no way he could have shot himself with the nail gun and not remembered it (unless, of course, he did suffer traumatic amnesia, like ouryL suggested). The angle the nail went in, the only way he could’ve have done it was if he stuck the thing in his mouth and pulled the trigger. shakes head