I guess that puts my little struggle over FMLA paperwork in context. This guy is amazingly lucky.
HuffPo— A Miami teen who was impaled in the forehead in a spearfishing gun accident in early June is very, very lucky, according to surgeons who were able to remove the long piece of metal that was lodged all the way through his brain.
16-year-old Yasser Lopez is recovering well; doctors with Jackson Memorial Hospital said at a press conference Monday he will likely rehabilitate without additional surgery.
Because the only word for someone who got shot in the head with a spearfishing gun is “lucky.”
The name Phineas Gage instantly came to mind.
Let’s hope the kid doesn’t have the same kind of problems going forward.
Yes, having no lasting or permanent injuries from something like that is very rare and could be considered lucky.
Getting hit in the brain with a friggin spear, decidedly un-lucky.
Kevin,
The same thing popped into my mind as well. It will be curious to see if this teenager suffers any severe sequelae. The trajectory of the spear is little different than in Gage’s case.
For those unfamiliar, a weblink:
http://www.deakin.edu.au/health/psychology/gagepage/
Things like this must happen hundreds of times a year – workers fall off scaffolding onto a metal rod, etc.
Phineas Gage is always the first thing that comes to my mind, as well, with this sort of head trauma. When I was in school, I had found a piece of rebar left behind from some construction. I put a wire and cardstock tag on it, labelling it as “Phineas Gage demo part #xxx“, and left it leaning against my psych 101 prof’s desk. (Although I believe tamping rods used by folks like Gage were of somewhat greater diameter.)
My first thought was not of Phineas Gage or the nature of luck. My first thought was “OW! OW! OW! Oh, SHIT! OW! OW! FUCK! OW!”
But that’s just me.
Actually, I’m curious as to the location of the wound on the right-left axis of the victim’s body. I’m thinking it must have passed between the two hemispheres of the brain, rather than directly through the frontal lobes.
The same thing popped into my mind as well.
So to speak.
No, that’s not just you, carpenterman. Below the text of the article are links to more photos. Picture 7 shows that the thing popped into his brain above his right eye and went more or less straight back. There’s also what appears to be an angiogram showing blood vessels and apparently not a hemorrhage.