A Texas man accidentally shot himself through the heart with a nail gun last month – but lived to tell the tale.
Aaron, who did not reveal his last name to KHOU, is an experienced carpenter and furniture maker in The Woodlands, Texas, even with 20 years of practice, the powerful nail gun nearly cost him his life.
The gun got stuck while Aaron was using it, and when he wrested if free, it shot a three inch nail into his chest.
He thought it was all over, but, incredibly, Aaron is expected to make a full recovery.
A Texas man named Aaron had been using a nail gun without incident for 20 years when it got stuck last month and went off, shooting a three inch nail directly into his heart. Remarkably, he has made a full recovery and is back to work – and using the gun (file)
Aaron was using the nail gun while working on some framing. The hose pulling compressed air into the gun go caught and Aaron moved to free it.
But in the process, the nail gun went off.
From about a foot away, it shot a nail straight into his chest.
Stunned, but somehow with his wits still about him, Aaron grabbed the nail with his bare hand and yanked it from his chest.
‘It was a foot from me probably, when it went off and the nail went in all the way to the head of it,’ Aaron told KHOU.
‘I reached down pulled the nail out, put my hand up and thought, “I’m going to die.”‘
Nail guns are high-risk equipment.
They’re not all equally powerful, some models can shoot metal nails at 1,4000 feet per second.
So once the gun went off, Aaron didn’t stand a chance to get out of dodge.
The devices send 37,000 people to the emergency room each year in the US.
But most of those are not for injuries to the heart.
Once Aaron pulled the nail from his chest, he quickly lost consciousness.
It was a risky move. With wounds of that kind – especially to the heart – it’s typically best to leave a bullet, or other penetrating object, where it is to prevent massive, deadly bleeding.
Aaron fell to the floor and one of his colleagues called 9-1-1.
‘My boss just shot a framing nail into his heart. His eyes are rolling back in his head,’ the man told the emergency operator.
Next someone called Liz, Aaron’s wife, who happens to work at Memorial Herman Trauma Center – where her husband would soon be transported for surgery in the hopes of saving his life.
Liz was distraught.
‘It was 40 minutes from the time that the accident occurred until he arrived at the hospital, so I can say that was the longest 40 minutes of my life,’ she told KHOU.
Aaron was rushed into surgery.
Even the doctor performing the operation, Dr Timothy Hodges, was shaken by the sight of Aaron.
‘You look at a patient, and you can tell when they’re not doing well, and when they’re doing well, and he was not doing well,’ said Dr Hodges.
He works closely with Liz at the trauma.
‘I know Liz. I know Aaron. It was tough,’ he tearfully admitted to KHOU.
Remarkably, he said that Aaron’s snap decision to pull the nail from his chest might well have saved his life, according to Dr Hodges.
Tense though it was, the surgery was a success.
Liz waited anxiously outside, only able to breathe a sigh of relief once Dr Hodges emerged from the operating room.
‘When Dr Hodges walked through the door and hugged me and told me that he was out and that he was doing fine, that’s when I knew that Aaron was going to be OK,’ Liz said.
‘The best of the best was all there that day and was able to take care of me,’ said Aaron.
‘From the ambulance drivers who did amazing jobs to everybody who was in the surgery.’
Aaron is doing well, and already back to work – even back to using the nail gun.