The key facts

  • A nail fragment flew into the man's head while he was driving nails into concrete with a pneumatic nail gun
  • The first CT scan failed to detect the foreign body; at the First City Hospital the fragment was found in the soft tissues of the left temple area
  • The fragment was shifting within the tissues and was successfully removed on the second attempt

A construction site injury and a missed fragment

In Moscow, doctors saved a man who suffered a temple injury while working with a pneumatic nail gun, the First City Hospital reported. The day before seeking help, the patient had been driving nails into concrete when a nail fragment flew into his head. He arrived at the emergency room with a severe headache.

Why the fragment was not found right away

At another medical facility, the man's small abrasion was treated and a CT scan was performed, but the foreign body was not detected at the time. He was prescribed painkillers and antibiotics, yet the pain only grew worse. After he turned to the First City Hospital, he was sent for a repeat CT scan, and this time specialists found a small piece of nail in the soft tissues of the left temple area.

A difficult extraction

Removing the fragment proved far from easy: it kept shifting within the tissues and caused the patient severe pain. The doctors extracted the fragment on the second attempt. The case shows that with head injuries, a foreign body may not appear on the first examination, and that a fragment shifting in the soft tissues can make symptoms worse over time.

A similar case earlier

Gazeta.Ru also previously reported another incident involving a foreign body: in the Urals, a two-year-old boy fell and struck his eye on a large self-tapping screwwhile helping his father with repairs.