Unusual craniocerebral injury caused by a pneumatic nail gun

Abstract

A man was found unconscious near a ladder in a house. After resuscitation he was brought to a hospital and X-rays of the skull showed that two 12 -cm long nails had completely penetrated the cranial cavity. The nails were operatively removed and after treatment for 5 weeks, the patient was transferred to a rehabilitation centre with a decreasing hemiparesis on the left side and general deterioration and then, after an attempted suicide to a psychiatric hospital. The perforating cranio-cerebral injury from a pneumatic nail gun known to reach only low muzzle velocities is a very unusual finding.

1. An Unusual Case of Suicide by Broken Glass Pierced Through the Buttocks

“…Other weapons that have been reported include scissors, daggers, scalpels, cannula and a paper knife (Karlsson et al, 1988;Karlsson 1998;Karger et al, 2000). Some more unusual cases of suicidal stabbing include stabbing with a falling weighted dagger (Ueno et al, 1999), a pneumatic nail gun (Bock et al, 2002), a nail (Shenoy and Raja, 2003), an electric power drill (Hausmann and Betz, 2002), a wood chisel (Karlsson et al, 1988), an iron chisel (Rautji et al, 2003), a garden fork (Start et al, 1992) and selfimpalement on a piece of wood (Reuhl et al, 2000).…”

“…Less frequently, suicidal stabbings have also been reported to the neck area (Hasekura et al, 1985;Chadly et al, 1991;Start et al, 1992;Pollack and Ropohl, 1992;Karger et al, 2000), the head (Fekete and Fox, 1980;Bock et al, 2002;Shenoy and Raja, 2003) and extremities (Start et al, 1992).…”