Man 'lucky to survive' after shooting himself in heart with nail gun
 

http://e3.365dm.com/17/08/750x563/64...20170816211219


A man who drove himself to hospital after accidentally shooting a nail into his heart was lucky to survive, doctors say.

Doug Bergeson was framing a fireplace when his nail gun fired, sending a nail ricocheting off wood and into his chest with the speed of a .22-calibre bullet.

The 52-year-old from Peshtigo, Wisconsin, said he could only see an inch of the 3.5in nail sticking out of his chest and "common sense" told him not to pull it out.

"I could see the nail moving with my heartbeat," he said. "It was kind of twitching with every heartbeat.

I was frustrated because I knew I wasn't going to get home until late and I couldn't get anything done."

After driving to a hospital 10 minutes away, Mr Bergeson started to feel more pain and needed the help of a security guard to make it inside.

X-rays showed the nail was a 16th of an inch - about the thickness of a piece of paper - from a majority artery.

Mr Bergeson was rushed to a cardiovascular hospital by ambulance and underwent open-heart surgery.

"A wrong heartbeat, a wrong position, and he would have had a much more complicated problem than he was bargaining for," Dr Alexander Roitstein said.

http://news.sky.com/story/man-lucky-...l-gun-10991758