Nail in the chest!

As it's Monday, and as I am glad to be alive, I thought I would share my latest tale of daring do and injury. 

So, there I am trying to retrieve a length of bricky's line from the end of a roof rafter about 3 m's above my head.  The line is looped around a nail driven half of its 40mm length into the rafter.  I'd been plumbing something up.  I'm too lazy to move my ladder from 10 metres away to reach the nail, so standing on the ground I give the string a little pull, no joy so I give it a tug, still no joy so I give it a bit of a yank.  I am ecstatic when I feel the line go slack and the nail pings out on its merry way….   

I feel a bit funny when the nail shoots off but I'm not quite sure why.  I can't see where the nail has gone…. until I follow the bricky's line through my shirt to the nail stuck 30mm between my rather well sculpted pectorals (okay that bits not true but the rest is).

So, what do you do when the nearest hospital is 40 kms away and a nail is sticking out off your chest?  Firstly, you think "good, I'm not dead or dying".  The, you pack up your tools, lock the house up and drive yourself to the ER where all the medical staff are quite impressed by my self inflicted injury.  I even had a photo taken (which will probably end up in one of those medical books for junior doctors next to the picture of the man and the light bulb). 

The Doc, who asked me if I wanted a local before he pulled it out (which I, to my stupidity refused), then stuck a needle into the hole (now bleeding profusely) to irrigate the wound, and told me it went in the whole 40mm (sideways thankfully) and bounced back out a little after hitting my sternum.

So, my advice is be happy to be alive as tomorrow you may well pull that nail out of that bit of wood just that little bit too hard…

All the best

Andy