UNABLE TO NAIL IT

Here's your Friday "hey Martha" story, courtesy of the Oregonian:

One day last year, a 33-year-old Oregon man picked up a nail gun and put it to his head.

Just what drove him isn't clear. Personal problems, mental illness and methamphetamine all probably played a role.

He fired. And fired again. And again. Twelve times.

Six nails clustered between his right eye and ear. The heads caught on the skull; the points pushed into the brain. He shot two nails below his right ear, four more through the left side of his face. At some point, he reloaded: Eight of the finishing nails measure 1.5 inches, four have 2-inch shanks.

A day later, he went to a small Oregon hospital. He said he had a headache.

Doctors saw nothing strange, at first. None of the nails stuck through the skin, and hair covered most of the pinpoint wounds. Then they took X-rays.

Astounded, the doctors gave him a tetanus shot and put him on a helicopter to OHSU Hospital. There, surgeons peeled back his face and removed the nails with pliers and a high-speed drill. Doctors gave the man antibiotics and psychiatric treatment. Twenty-five days later, he walked out of Oregon Health & Science University a little weak but, physically, healthy.

Doctors say his case is extraordinary: He is the only person known to have survived after having so many foreign objects embedded in his head.

Unless you count Pinhead.