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Medical Miracles

Dec 27, 2006

Largest Object Removed

The largest object to be removed from the human skull was a 20.32 cm (8 inch) survival knife from the head of 41 year-old Michael Hill. In April of 1998, Michael answered the door to his friend's place and had a knife plunged into his skull. He then walked down the street to another friend's house. Four hours later the knife was removed. Michael didn't even have an infection and was well enough to leave the hospital a week later. Since his close brush with death, Michael's memory isn't the same and he needs medication to prevent seizures.

Hanging by the Optic Nerve

The term "it's all fun and games until someone loses an eye" has deep meaning for 19 year-old Kevin Martel. Kevin had been mountain biking in Hueston Woods, Hawaii, when he took a tumble and ended up badly wounded at the bottom of a cliff. Friends drove him to the hospital. Besides broken bones and a missing tooth, Kevin's left eye was hanging by the optic nerve. It took doctors two and a half-hours to repair his eye. A few weeks later Kevin could see clearly out of it. His left eye wanders occasionally and he'll never have perfect vision but the fact that Kevin can see out of it is a miracle.

Shot in the Head

A 58 year-old man is lucky to have avoided brain damage after being shot in the head. The construction worker was on site, below a man who was shooting nails into a board, with a nail gun. The board broke and a three inch nail pegged the construction worker in the head, just missing his brain. Instead, the nail went in right next to his left eyeball, through his sinus cavity and stopped at the base of his skull. Doctors were able to remove the nail and to everyone's amazement, there are no signs of brain damage.

What do you think? Are all these stories pulling your leg or did these medical miracles really happen? Take our poll or

Last time I wrote about some bizarre human feats. One of the stories wasn't true. Tears of blood was made up. Unless you know someone who does this, I'm not aware of this ever happening. Check back next week to see if you guessed which Medical Miracle story is made up.

Here are last weeks poll results:

Believe It or Not?
Elastic Man: 6 percent
Human speed Bump: 46 percent
Tears of Blood: 48 percent

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