Teen survives spear through head

Media Images 61009000 Png 61009041 Spearinhead1

During a fishing trip earlier this month, Yasser Lopez, 16, was hit in the head by a spear gun. It went in over his eye and straight out the back of his head. He's in a Miami hospital and, amazingly, doing pretty well, thanks! "US teen survives spear through brain" (BBC)

David Pescovitz is Boing Boing's co-editor/managing partner. He's also a research director at Institute for the Future. On Instagram, he's @pesco.

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nixiebunny

I took an arrow to the knee, but it was nothing like this.
- Antinous / Moderator
  
  Of course, a spear-gun spear is an arrow by any normal definition.
  - http://tortoise-brand-pot-scrubbing-cleaner.myopenid.com/ Mister
    
    Yes, but a head is not a knee by any normal definition.
Digilante

Many European students of surgery do their internships in Africa. Due to the shortage of any type of staff, they are thrown into the deep end from the first day, and let’s be honest, spears through heads don’t make news there so there is a lot to practice on. A family member did this and on her first emergency shift had to deal with a smiling gent who walked in himself with a large axe still in his head.
- curgoth
  
  The internet provides: How to say “Oh my god, there’s an axe in my head!” : http://yamara.com/axe/
CSBD

Looks like he got the point.

Seriously though… that x-ray looks like it really sucks… though he is “doing fine”. There are worse things to get shot with in Florida.
- edaddy13
  
  funniest post of the week!!!!
- Brandon Wright
  
  Like zombies… and their teeth…
redstarr

While I hope for the best for him, I predict he’ll be a lot more Phineas Gage “fine” than actually fine.
mappo

A grotesquery and unicorn chaser combined!
Duffalo

At this point I’d be shocked by a story about someone getting impaled in the head and NOT surviving. How many skull x-rays have I seen with 15 massive nails or spikes or whatever and then I’m reading that the person is going to be fine?
- theophrastvs
  
  would you be anywhere as likely to see an x-ray of someone that took such an injury and was already dead?
Gary61

Good news – once he gets older, he’ll be able to apply his alcohol directly to his brain, and can bypass those pesky cans and drinking glasses.
http://www.disoriented.net/ angusm

Doctors said that while the spear completely penetrated his brain, because the victim was a teenage male, no vital areas were affected. “Our experience has shown that most adolescent males don’t do a lot of thinking,” said the surgeon. “They can pretty much cruise along on about 10% of capacity until they get substantially older.”
- xzzy
  
  “At which point they drop to about 5% of capacity due to senility.”
  - Brandon Wright
    
    Or when they start getting involved in politics…
http://twitter.com/LennStar_de LennStar

“…his condition could have been much worse.”
I really like that sentence. Without it, I would never have guessed it!
gwailo_joe

My experience in cranium spearing is rather significant. I must say…that’s one lucky kid.
- http://pulse.yahoo.com/_RREC2OY32JFN6JWSK4KZNBZF7Y Jim
  
  C’mon, if he was lucky, the spear would have missed him completely.
http://twitter.com/writebastard Ian Wood

Did he turn into an asshole, like Phineas Gage?
MB44

Now he doesn’t know math.
- travtastic
  
  Now he knows all the math.
  - MB44
    
    All maths.
theophrastvs

i wonder about the details of removing it. the spear has a bit of head on it, so i’m guessing you don’t want to just pull it out the way it came. so you shove it further in to clear the spearhead out the back, then use a surgical saw to cut off the head and then pull the rest out?
Mister44

This is why I like BB. What other place would have not one, but two comments about Phineas Gage?
MrWednesday7

Trying to resist the thought “so it missed the brain, then”, and losing.
theSamLowry

Florida, you scare me so.
Isoko

This makes the gentleman with the nail in his brain look like a complete amateur!
Jorpho

There’s something delightfully incongruous about the little “93″.

“So, this is the X-ray of the patient, then? You said he had a spear in his head. Where is it? It’s that big white thing? Which big white thing? That one? No? Is it that one? Oh, it’s the one labelled 93? I get it now!”
http://www.facebook.com/pianoarthur Arthur Schwartz

He really dodged a bullet this time
EvilSpirit

Not that it’s high on his list of problems, but he’s also got a heck of an overbite, there, doesn’t he?
zuben

Too soon to discuss album titles/cover art possibilities?
- Digilante
  
  Never too soon. The Dark Side Of The Brain? The Final Spear? The First Spear Is The Deepest? Always In My Brain?
  - http://dailygrail.com/ Red Pill Junkie
    
    But they’d have to be pretty obnoxious songs, you know? the ones that get stuck in your brain like… well, you already get the picture.
    - travtastic
      
      The Meme Spear!
  - rausantaella
    
    I dedicate this non-death to Odin.
Ms. Anne Thrope

In the article the doctor referred to a miracle. Time to leave that hospital. Go somewhere that hard science is respected. Really? A miracle? A miracle would be an invisible friend materializing and stopping the arrow.
- Antinous / Moderator
  
  It’s called figurative language.
  - Digilante
    
    Still though, coming from a doctor… The deus ex machina miracle thing is getting boring – due credit should be given to the accidentally volunteering patient and the medical staff.
- http://thisisonlya.blogspot.com robcat2075
  
  mir-a-cle:
  
  3. a wonder; marvel.
  4. a wonderful or surpassing example of some quality: a miracle of modern acoustics.
  - Antinous / Moderator
    
    It’s also etymologically derived from astonishment and wonder, not intervention by saints.
http://pulse.yahoo.com/_RREC2OY32JFN6JWSK4KZNBZF7Y Jim

Of course he’s doing fine. He’s a teenage boy. He missed the 1% of his brain that is actually in use during this decade of his life.
http://mjfgates.myopenid.com/ mjfgates

Soooo… where are the other ninety-two spears?…
- fiatrn
  
  The 93 is part of a small piece of lead (Pb) that says R 93. This is the id tag of the Xray tech, and tells the reading MD that the XR is taken from the right. This film is a cross-table lateral, btw. The same tech would have an L93 badge as well. Not all tech’s tags have anything besides L and R, but some have their initials or number.
  
  Note that in the XR the patient has two tubes down his throat. One goes into his airway and is an ETT, showing that he is on a ventilator and possibly/probably sedated into unconsiousness (if not already unconscious from his injury). The other goes down his esophagus (an OG tube) into his stomach to keep his stomach decompressed and minimize the chance of aspiration.
  
  Also note that this XR was taken at Jackson Memorial. Jackson Memorial is totally awesome trauma center, so this kid is in great hands.
  
  Jonathan
  the Fiat RN
  Denver, CO
Payne Hertz

I’m not a dentist but that kid looks to have one helluva set of chompers. You’d need dynamite to extract one of his teeth.
irksome

You kids with your piercings.
- Antinous / Moderator
  
  Prince Albert? I’ve got a King Harold!