Eugene Rakow, a self-employed carpenter, narrowly escaped death after shooting himself in the heart with a nail gun on Friday.
Rakow was building a deck on a neighbor's house, using a nail gun. He explained in an interview with Fox 9 that he was working with the gun at about chest level. He pulled the trigger to dispatch a nail, which he did successfully, then somehow, the nail gun jumped and he nailed himself in the chest.
The nail was 3-and-a-half inches long and went through the heart completely, according to surgeon, Dr. Louis Louis. The nail missed the coronary artery by just 2 mm. Dr. Louis also explained that because the head of the nail was caught on Rakow's sternum, the nail couldn't move any deeper into the chest, preventing greater injury.
Immediately after the incident, Rakow telephoned Carmen, his wife of 25 years with whom he has seven children, and she rushed him to a hospital. The staff there were not equipped to treat him and he was sent to Abbott Northwestern Hospital in Minneapolis, where a surgery was performed to remove the nail. As a souvenir of the ordeal, Rakow was given the nail to keep.
Rakow is now home with his family and recovering. However, he will not be able to work for several months and consequently faces a new challenge: He is uninsured. His wife and teenage children are now looking for ways to pay the bills and one of his daughters has set up a PayPal account to accept donations.
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