Hospital officials say an 86-year-old Arizona man is lucky to be alive after he accidentally impaled himself in the head with a set of pruning shears.
Leroy Luetscher was working in his garden on July 30 when he dropped a pair of pruning shears, which landed point-side down in the ground.
When Mr Luetscher went to pick them up, he lost his balance and fell face-down on the handle.
Advertisement: Story continues below The handle then penetrated his eye socket and went down into his neck, resting on the external carotid artery.
Mr Luetscher was rushed to Arizona's University Medical Center hospital, where surgeons removed the shears and rebuilt his orbital floor with metal mesh, saving his eye.
"You wouldn't believe your eyes," Dr Julie Wynne, assistant professor in the University of Arizona Department of Surgery, said of Mr Luetscher's injuries.
"Half of the pruning shears was sticking out and the other half was in his head."
Doctors say Mr Luetscher still has slight swelling in his eyelids and minor double vision but has otherwise recovered.
"I am so grateful to the doctors and staff at UMC," he said after emerging from surgery.
A millimeter off and it would have gone thru/ripped out his eyeball. To say nothing of how close it must have come to shredding a major artery or vein or any number of nerves.
Re: Ouch and ick and ouch and ick!
Posted: Wed Aug 31, 2011 2:56 pm
by Sue U
I'm having a hard time believing this is even real.
ETA: I did see the ABC News video of the guy; it's just heard to imagine he was not left blind or otherwise permanently impaired by this incident. One lucky guy.
Re: Ouch and ick and ouch and ick!
Posted: Thu Sep 01, 2011 2:12 am
by loCAtek
Actually this has happened before; some people even do it on purpose, for yes, the shock value.
It even possible for YOU to feel that channel in your sinuses. No, not with a an instrument or your finger as shown (Although, I heard of guy who's tongue was so long he could stick it up there.) You may have already felt it on a day, when you were very congested and your nasal passages were completely blocked up. When that occurs and you try to blow past that blockage, you might have felt or heard a tiny blast of air from the corner of your eye.
