7/3/2002: Spear in head
 

http://cellar.org/2002/spearinhead.jpg

Ow. Details are from CNN.

Summary: this 20-year-old guy was spearfishing in Greece when an accident happened. The story doesn't say how it happened, but says that the guy wound up floating in the ocean for 6 hours, aware of where he was, but unable to speak and having trouble breathing.

Friends of his told area lifeguards that he was missing, and then he was found with this 40 inch spear going up through his jaw and out the top of his head. It was his own spear, from his fishing gun.

And then the reason it became a story of interest: doctors removed the spear, and not only did the guy live, but he suffered no complications! The spear went through an area of the brain which is non-functional.

reminds me of a similar story
 

when I was in high school in Victoria BC, a kid on the field at Central High was impaled through the chest by a javelin (can you say wrong place, wrong time???). He was actually pinned to the ground but after surgery and 6 months rehab, he was fine (although I'm sure he has some fear of track and field).

Too bad there was no video of that!

Darwin Award Winner
 

Honorable Mention

(9 October 2000, Canada) A young man was brought into a Toronto hospital with an arrow in his brain. The police explained that the victim was with a friend at an archery range, and lost an expensive arrow by overshooting the target. The bowman searched the thicket behind the target, but couldn’t find his arrow. So he called out to his friend, "Hey shoot another one," thinking it would help him locate the original. The friend complied, and the arrow flew true, striking the victim between the eyeballs and piercing his brain case. He is in intensive care and hemiplegic, with survival uncertain.

Coincidentally, in this case the arrow also went through an area of the brain that was non-functional. ;)