Story Archive

His Friends Call Him Spike

“This was the most freak thing that could have happened that I didn’t die from,” said home-builder Nick Thompson of Stillwater, Minn. He was framing a wall when his nail gun kicked back and shot a 4" nail half-way into his face, lodging in his skull. “I didn’t even know I had a nail in my eye until we got to the hospital and then sitting in the chair, I was like ‘Take a picture. Take a picture.’” — he wanted to see what happened. A friend took a picture. Surgeons had to remove part of his skull to get the nail out, but at least it didn’t puncture his eyeball. “One more millimeter and it was a lobotomy,” he said. “One more millimeter and it was poke my eye out. One more millimeter this way and I was dead. There are so many things that could’ve gone wrong. I don’t know how everything went right.” (RC/KMSP Minneapolis) ...Well, one thing went wrong.