Dante Autullo was sure he’d merely cut himself with a nail gun while building a shed, and thought doctors were joking when they told him what an X-ray revealed: A 3 1/4-inch nail was lodged in the middle of his brain. – Associated Press
The room was spinning. He laid on his back on a plastic sheet with his eyes closed.
When the doctor came in he slapped his clipboard against his leg.
The man looked up. His eyes were red and glazed.
“What did I tell you about sleeping,” the doctor said.
“Just resting my eyes.” He lifted his body up and rested reclined on his elbows.
“We have to get you to the emergency room,” the doctor said.
“Excuse me?”
The doctor walked up to him and handed him the a thin sheet of plastic paper. It was the picture of his skull, and in the middle pf the brain was a long thin piece of metal.
“What’s that?”
“You tell me. It looks like a nail.”
“Is this a joke? Did you pull this out of the doctor’s joke file?”
“No,” the doctor said. “That is in your head.”
The man looked down at the x-ray then brushed his hand against the side of his head. He could feel the bump.
He had been working in his backyard when the nail gun jammed. He was standing on a ladder putting up drywall inside a small shed that he built. He turned the gun around to inspect the head. There was a rush of air and he felt like a bee had stung him in the head. He screamed a brief expletive but the pain subsided quickly.
He spent the rest of the day in the shed and when night fell he laid in bed next to his wife and complained that he felt sick. In the morning he was throwing up and now he sat in the back of an ambulance with a bandage wrapped around his head and a crying wife holding his hand.
“Here,” he said. “Take a picture.”
He handed his wife his phone and smiled next to the X-ray.
She smiled in between sobs and told him that it wasn’t funny.
“You should call Discovery,” he said. “I’m a medical miracle.”
She snapped the photo. The siren roared.
“Post it to Facebook,” he said. “I’m going to be famous.”
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