تصویر اشعه ایکس از جمجمه اش آن قدر وحشت آور بود که دوستانش فکر می کردند می بایست ساختگی باشد.  در وسط تصویر جانبی از مغزش، یک میخ سه و نیم اینچی [نزدیک 9 سانتیمتری] قرار داشت.

با این حال، دانته اوتولو برای بیش از 24 ساعت بی هیچ حسی از این رخداد خبر نداشت.  این مرد 32 ساله ساکن اورلاند پارک [ایالت ایلینویز، آمریکا] پس از آن که با یک اسلحه میخ (نیل گان) به صورت تصادفی به سر خود شلیک کرد راه می رفت، حرف می زد، و حتی به عنوان بخشی از کار حاشیه ای اش برف پارو کرد.

[اسلحه میخ ابزاری شبیه به یک اسلحه کمری است که در نجاری و کارهای خانه مورد استفاده است، و می تواند بدون نیاز به ضربه های چکش اجسام را به سرعت به یکدیگر میخ کند.]

سر انجام حالت تهوع همراه با سردرد شدید او را به بیمارستان کشاند و تصویربرداری با اشعه ایکس وجود میخ در وسط مغزش را نشان داد.  پزشکان در یک عمل جراحی در بعد از ظهر پنجشنبه، حدود 36 ساعت پس از رخداد، میخ را بیرون کشیدند و او اکنون در حال بهبودی است.  گیل گلینزر، نامزدش، وضعیتت او را پس از جراحی "غیر قابل باور و یک معجزه" توصیف کرد و توضیح داد: "او خوب است.  او دست ها و پاهایش را حرکت داد، به حالت عادی حرف می زند، و همه چیز را به یاد می آورد."

اولوتو در حال کار در گاراژ خانه اش در رو زسه شنبه بود که [سیم] اسلحه میخ در پیرامون سرش جمع شد.  به گفته گلینزر، اولوتو احساس کرد که نوک اسلحه میخ به سرش اصابت کرد.  اما آنچه به واقع رخ داد این بود که هنگامی که اسلحه با سرش تماس برقرار کرد، حسگرهای اسلحه آن را به عنوان یک سطح صاف شناسایی و شلیک نمود.  اولوتو فقط صدای "ویزی" را شنید و چون پس از استخوان جمجمه، و در درون مغز سلول های حساس به درد وجود ندارد او هیچ حسی از وجود میخ در میانه مغزش نداشت.   [ترکیبی از خبرهای کوریر نیوز و اسوشیتدپرس - ادامه در زیر ...]

‘Un-Freaking-Believable’: Man Recovering From Nail in His Brain

By Casey Toner ctoner@southtownstar.com 
The Courier News (Chicago Sun-Times) January 19, 2012 8:42PM

The X-ray of his skull was so gruesome that his friends thought it had to be a fake. There, lodged sideways in the middle of his brain, was a 3 1/2-inch nail.

Yet, for more than 24-hours, Dante Autullo was blissfully unaware. The 32-year-old Orland Park resident walked, talked, and even did some work at his side job, plowing snow, after he had accidentally shot himself in the head with a nail gun Tuesday morning.

A doctor removed the nail Thursday afternoon at Christ Medical Center in Oak Lawn, where he is recovering.

“It’s a miracle,” his fiancee Gail Glaenzer said. “Un-freaking-believable.”

She said the accident happened when Autullo was standing on a ladder and working on a project in the garage. He had fired several nails when the recoil of the final shot sent the gun near his head.

With his finger still on the trigger, a sensor on the top of the gun recognized a flat surface, and unloaded a nail into his brain.

Glaenzer, who has four children with Autullo, said he suffered a small gash on his head, which he thought was caused by the nail gun whipping him in the head.

She didn’t see any evidence of any penetration to his skull and Autullo told her the nail shot past his ear. He felt good enough to go out and plow snow.

“He’s a bull, he likes to work,” she said.

He went to work again on Wednesday. When he came home, he took a nap, woke up and felt nauseous. She drove him to Palos Community Hospital for a checkup.

An X-ray showed that there was nail lodged inside his brain, just millimeters away from the part of the brain that controls all motor functions.

“They were shocked because he was walking and talking and he had it in for 36 hours,” said Autullo’s mother, Jerri Autullo. “I hoped that it wasn’t going to be as bad as it looked.”

Autullo’s friend, Alison E. Bushemi, saw the picture he posted on his Facebook wall and thought it was a hoax.

“Then we realized there’s a nail stuck in his brain,” Bushemi said. “It’s something you’d see on (the television show), ‘Untold Stories of E.R.’ ”

Autullo was taken to Christ Medical Center where he had surgery Thursday morning. The operation took about four hours.

A surgeon removed the nail as well as part of his skull, which was replaced with mesh and a titanium plate.

“He wanted me to call the Discovery Channel to come film it,” Glaenzer quipped.

Although the surgery was successful, Autullo isn’t out of the fire just yet. Doctors are still worried about any complications stemming from it including swelling, bleeding, and fever.

His family visited him after his operation. Jerri Autullo said she held her son’s hand and told him the worst was over.

Glaenzer said Autullo was hurting but he could move all of his body parts and talk.

The first thing he asked for was to see their four children, Glaenzer said. He was also angry that he wouldn’t be able to go to work on Friday.

“He’s in the darn hospital yelling that there’s a big snowstorm tomorrow and how’s he going to plow?” Glaenzer said. “This is from a guy who just got his brain cut open.”

Ill. Man in Joking Mood despite Nail in Brain

By DON BABWIN | Associated Press via Yahoo News – January 20, 2012

OAK LAWN, Ill. (AP) — Gail Glaenzer still can't believe that her fiancé unknowingly shot a nail into his skull, let alone that he posted a picture of the X-ray on Facebook during his ambulance ride between hospitals for surgery.

But she was joking about the circumstances Friday, a day after doctors successfully removed the 3 ¼-inch nail from Dante Autullo's brain.

"Dante says, 'I want it to make a necklace out of it,'" Glaenzer said.

Glaenzer sat Friday in the lobby of Advocate Christ Medical Center in Oak Lawn. where Autullo, 32, of Orland Park, was listed in fair condition in the hospital's intensive care unit. She was still trying to process just how lucky the father of her four children was.

"He feels good. He moved all his limbs, he's talking normal, he remembers everything," said Glaenzer, 33. "It's amazing, a miracle."

Autullo was in his workshop using the nail gun Tuesday when it recoiled near his head, Glaenzer said.

He felt what he thought was the point of the gun hit his head. But what really happened was that when the gun came in contact with his head, the sensor recognized a flat surface and fired, she said.

"I looked at it when he got home, and it just looked like (his head) was cut open," she said.

With nothing to indicate that a nail had not simply "whizzed by his ear," as Autullo explained to her, she cleaned it with peroxide.

While there are pain-sensitive nerves on a person's skull, there aren't any within the brain itself. That's why he would have felt the nail strike the skull, but he wouldn't have felt it penetrate the brain.

Neither thought much about it, and Autullo went on with his day, even plowing a bit of snow. But the next day when he awoke from a nap, feeling nauseated, Glaenzer sensed something was wrong and suggested they go to the hospital.

At first Autullo refused, but he relented after the two picked up their son at school Wednesday evening.

A couple hours later an X-ray was taken, and there in the middle of his brain was a nail. Doctors told Autullo and Glaenzer that the nail came within millimeters from the part of the brain that controls motor function. He was rushed by ambulance to the other hospital for more specialized care.

Hospital spokesman Mike Maggio said the surgery took two hours, and the part of the skull that was removed for surgery was replaced with a titanium mesh. The surgeon didn't want to put that part of the skull back in place, fearing it might have been contaminated by the nail, he said.

Glaenzer said that while Autullo hasn't really talked about how scared he was about what might have happened, he did express a recognition about coming close to death.

"He was joking with me, (after surgery), 'We need to get the Discovery Channel up here to tape this,'" she recalled him saying. "'I'm one of those medical miracles.'"