Shot Though the Heart (Woman accidentally nails herself)

abc ^ | 10-18-03

[wheelgunguru]

K O U N T Z E, Texas, Oct. 18 — Joy Wiggins was enjoying a day of home-improvement tasks last weekend when she suddenly felt a shooting pain in her heart. She realized she had accidentally shot herself directly in the heart.

Wiggins was trying to use a nail gun to secure a board at an awkward angle, with the nail gun pointing back toward herself — but when she tried to strike the board, she missed it and shot herself in the chest. When Wiggins realized what happened, she climbed down from her attic, where she had been working, and called for her husband. Then she fainted.

Wiggins' husband got her to Christus St. Elizabeth Hospital in nearby Beaumont, where her heart stopped beating and she went into full cardiac arrest.

Surgeons worked quickly to keep her alive with a rare procedure to relieve pressure caused by a blood clot.

Just four hours after the lifesaving surgery, Wiggins was awake and alert.

‘I Am So Blessed’

Wiggins say it's going to take awhile for her to realize just how close she came to losing it all.

"I knew I hurt myself but I had no knowledge that I had hurt myself quite so bad," Wiggins said. "I love the fact that I do have life and that I am so blessed."

Trauma surgeon Dr. Dar Kavouspour and heart surgeon Dr. Michael Oszczakiewicz both worked on Wiggins.

Kavouspour said Wiggins is truly lucky to be alive and without brain damage.

"These are cases that I might see maybe three to four times a year, whether it's a stab wound from a knife or a nail gun," Kavouspour said. "The majority of the patients, by the time they arrive to the emergency room, they're already dead."

[najida]

Sounds like something I would do.

Maybe that is why no one will let me buy a nail gun.

[inquest]

Whoopsie.

[inquest]

Maybe that is why no one will let me buy a nail gun.

Good point. We need nail gun control laws, NOW!

[rightazrain]

A cautionary tale. Just showed it to my fixer-upper husband.

[Petruchio]

I hate when I do that . . .

[FixitGuy]

Careless people shouldn't operate dangerous tools.

Do semi-automatic nail guns fall under the 2nd amendment?

Quick! Call Sarah Brady! (Not.)

[najida]

More like my family is tired of buying bandages.

[Batrachian]

"When Wiggins realized what happened, she climbed down from her attic, where she had been working, and called for her husband"

How long did that take?

[TenaciousZ]

Glad she's going to make it. It's been a dangerous week.

[EggsAckley]

Whatever happened to doctors named Smith, Jones, Johnson, Jackson, etc.??

~</;o)

[novacation]

How women turn tools into weapons.

[A. Patriot]

A friend of mine who is a trim carpenter got a nail driven into his brain.

He was on a job site and another carpenter was on a scaffolding and fell off with a nail gun in his hand. He hit my friend with it in the head and neither of them at the time knew it had fired. When my friend got home, he had a pain behind his ear and asked one of his kids to take a look. It was then he realized he had been shot with the nail gun. It was later found that the safety had been removed from the nail gun. (meaning you just hit it onto the wood and it fires without pulling the trigger)

My friend showed me the X-ray. It was a "classic" skull picture with a framing nail going into the brain.

Luckily, he hasn't had any side effects (that I know of).

[mystery-ak]

The real story here that everyone is overlooking is why her husband wasn't in the attic doing these home repair projects.....hmmmmm?

[South40]

WE NEED NAIL GUN CONTROL...NOW!

[Freebird Forever]

Too bad Home Improvement is no longer on the air.

They could do a show "ripped from the headlines".

[CholeraJoe]

A big of a deal as this sounds, it's a fairly simple procedure technically. Dr. Luther Leonidas Hill was the first American surgeon to suture a wound to the heart in which the patient survived. That was in 1902 in Montgomery, Alabama not Baltimore, New York, or Boston.

Luther Leonidas Hill, M.D.

Dr. Luther Leonidas Hill was a pioneer in vascular surgery in the latter part of the nineteenth century and the early decades of the twentieth century. A native of Montgomery, Alabama, he received his M.D. degree in 1881 from the University of the City of New York. Dr. Hill went on to acquire a second M.D. degree from the Jefferson Medical College of Philadelphia. Dr. Hill studied at King's College Hospital in London under the famous surgeon, Lord Joseph Lister. Returning to Montgomery, he practiced medicine for over 50 years, including a 35 year tenure as surgeon-in-chief at the Laura Croom Hill Hospital. Dr. Hill was well known for his surgical versatility, but his particular interest was in wounds of the human heart. In 1902, Dr. Hill was the first American physician to successfully suture a wound in the human heart, and the patient lived. Dr. Hill also proposed the creation of the State Medical Association's annual Jerome Cochran Memorial Lecture honoring the State Health Officer. In 1959, the Society for Vascular Surgery presented the Luther Leonidas Hill Memorial plaque to Senator Lister Hill, son of Dr. Hill, in honor of his father's pioneering contributions in cardiovascular surgery.

[najida]

The real story here that everyone is overlooking is why her husband wasn't in the attic doing these home repair projects.....hmmmmm?

Because he has a bad back (that is why I have always done mine).

[knuthom]

My daughter shot herself through the thumb in a highschool shop class. The guys in the class were very interested in looking at the gory injury. Made her popular, but I wouldn't recommend it to other teenage girls.

[Hegemony Cricket]

Shot through the heart...
and I'm to blame...
I give DIY a bad name, bad name...