Man Shoots Self in Brain With Nailgun, Finishes Shed Before Going to Hospital

When doctors showed Dante Autullo his X-ray he was sure that they were playing a prank on him. There as no way that a three inch nail was resting in the middle of his brain. But the X-ray was real. The Illinois construction worker had had the nail in his brain for more than 10 hours.

Autullo said:

“When they brought in the picture, I said to the doctor ‘Is this a joke? Did you get that out of the doctors joke file?’ The doctor said ‘No man, that’s in your head.'”

The Guardian reports that Autullo was working on a shed when he accidentally fired the nailgun toward his skull. Autullo thought the nail just grazed his ear and continued working. It wasn’t until he woke up the next morning feeling nauseous that he decided to go to the hospital.

After the nail was discovered in his brain, Autullo was rushed to the Advocate Christ medical center in Oak Lawn, Illinois, to have the nail removed. Surgeons pulled a 3 1/4 inch nail out of his brain. The nail came within millimeters of the part of the brain that controls motor functions.

Despite the severity of the situation, Autullo tooks some time out in the ambulance to post the picture to Facebook. Autullo said:

“It really felt like I got punched on the side of the head. I thought it went past my ear.”

After the surgery Autullo’s companion Gail Glaenzer said:

“He feels good. He moved all his limbs, he’s talking normal, he remembers everything. It’s amazing, a miracle.”

Autullo’s neurosurgeon, Leslie Schaffer, explained that the skull has pain sensitive nerves but the brain does not. Autullo felt like he had been hit in the side of the head, but once the nail was past the skull, he didn’t feel anything.

If you took a nail to the brain, would you take time out of your day to post the X-Ray to Facebook?