Story Archive

His Heart Was in the Right Place

Doug Bergeson, 52, was framing a new fireplace at his home in Peshtigo, Wisc., when his nail gun accidentally fired. No, he wasn’t so dumb to have it pointing at his body. But the nail bounced off a piece of wood and hit him in the chest. “I thought it just nicked me,” he said. But Bergeson noticed his sweatshirt was kind of stuck to him, and took a closer look: he could see an inch of nail sticking out of his chest. The gun was loaded with 3-1/2 inch nails. “I could see the nail moving,” he said. “It was kind of twitching with every heartbeat.” Bergeson said “common sense” told him not to pull the nail out, so he washed up, drove himself to the hospital, carefully parked his pickup truck, and walked in to the emergency room. It was only then he started to feel distress: sure enough, the nail was in his heart, just 1/16 inch from his aorta. Emergency heart surgery saved him. (RC/WITI Milwaukee) ...Not pulling it out is obvious. Common sense would dictate calling 911.