eleven nails.

By impactEDnurse • Dec 18th, 2007 • Category: ectopics

From the Mayo Clinic via the highly recommended Mind Hacks:

“44-year-old man presented to his local emergency department wearing a baseball cap and complaining of headaches that had progressively worsened over the preceding 11 weeks. After we provided generous analgesia and performed simple investigations that failed to identify a diagnosis, the patient removed his cap to reveal an assortment of metallic objects embedded in his scalp. Plain radiographs showed 11 nails penetrating into his brain. A detailed history revealed a diagnosis of paranoid schizophrenia, and the patient confirmed that he had hammered a nail into his head each week for the past 11 weeks to rid him of evil. The nails were removed with the patient under general anesthesia, and he made an uncomplicated recovery with no neurological deficits.”

impactEDnurse is also known as Ian Miller, a nurse with over 26 years experience working in a busy emergency department in, Australia. This site in no way reflects the opinions of that hospital. All stories (although based on actual experiences) have been changed to protect patient confidentiality.
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11 Responses »

  1. GruntDoc » Blog Archive » eleven nails on December 18th, 2007 at 5:13 pm:

    [...] ยป eleven nails. Emergency Department [...]

  2. Eleven Nails « Non-Urban Emergency Medicine on December 19th, 2007 at 12:41 am:

    [...] Eleven Nails From ImpactED Nurse [...]

  3. Trusted.MD Network on December 19th, 2007 at 3:51 am:

    Nails…

    Looks pretty painful….

  4. CountyRat on December 19th, 2007 at 5:01 am:

    You know, I’ve seen head films before, and I am pretty sure that those long, hyperopague thingies shouldn’t be there.

  5. Dr Wes on December 19th, 2007 at 6:07 am:

    Hmmm. I thought he was gonna be screwed…

    (I had to go there, sorry.)

  6. The Anonymous Therapist on December 19th, 2007 at 11:49 am:

    Wow. Eleven nails. What bothers me about this isn’t that he tried to remove evil from his head by driving nails into it, but that it took eleven tries for him to notice that his strategy wasn’t working out.

  7. jerrtep on December 20th, 2007 at 5:07 am:

    HOW.IN.THE.HE&&.DO.YOU.HAMMER.A.<br /><br />
    NAIL.INTO.YOUR.
    FRICKIN.HEAD????
    I couldn’t hammer a 2 inch nail into my skull, let alone a 6 in. stake nail…..??????????????it takes all kinds doesn’t it?
    whatafreak!!!

  8. foofdawg on December 20th, 2007 at 6:19 am:

    So every day he hammers a nail in his head, and at the same time, his headaches progressively worsen.

    I realize he’s got mental problems, but 2+2=4 didn’t occur to him?

    I’d love to know how many times he smashed his thumb trying to get the nails in his head, and if he did it in front of a mirror, or not.

  9. Peter Muller on December 21st, 2007 at 10:55 am:

    What an extraordinary thing to do!
    The pain inside his head must have been intense to ignore the pain of driving in the nails to relieve it.
    delusional yes but brave as well.
    deserves sympathy and respect.

  10. Jeff B on December 24th, 2007 at 1:29 am:

    I wouldn’t have been able to accomplish this feat. I’d have probably missed the nail, hammering my thumb instead. And THAT would hurt.

  11. » man brushes with death. Emergency Department on January 29th, 2008 at 9:44 am:

    [...] first brush with death was in “the man who hammered 11 nails into his head“, now, we present a case report published in the Acta Neurochirurgica : The authors report a [...]

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