Brazilian construction worker survives 6-foot metal bar through skull

This tomography scan released by the Miguel Couto hospital, shows the skull of 24-year-old construction worker Eduardo Leite, who was pierced by a metal bar in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.

/ AP

(AP) RIO DE JANEIRO - Doctors say a 24-year-old construction worker survived after a 6-foot metal bar fell from above and pierced his skull.

PICTURES: 23 most shocking medical scans

Luiz Alexandre Essinger, chief of staff at Rio de Janeiro's Miguel Couto Hospital, said doctors successfully withdrew the iron bar from Eduardo Leite's skull during a five-hour surgery.

"He was taken to the operating room, his skull was opened, they examined the brain and the surgeon decided to pull the metal bar out from the front in the same direction it entered the brain." Essinger said.

He said Leite was conscious when he arrived at the hospital and told him what had happened. He is lucid and shows no negative consequences after the operation. Essinger said Friday that "it really was a miracle" that Leite survived.

"Today, he continues well, with few complaints for a five-hour-long surgery," Essinger said. "He says he feels little pain."

The bar fell from the fifth floor of a building under construction, went through Leite's hard hat, entered the back of his skull and exited between his eyes, Essinger said, adding: "It really was a miracle" that Leite survived.

The accident and surgery took place on Wednesday.

"They told me he was lying down (in the ambulance) with the bar pointing upward," said Leite's wife, Lilian Regina da Silva Costa. "He was holding it and his face covered in blood. His look was as if nothing had happened. When he arrived he told the doctors he wasn't feeling anything, no pain, nothing. It's unbelievable."

Ruy Monteiro, the hospital's head of neurosurgery, told the Globo TV network that Leite escaped by just a few centimeters from losing one eye and becoming paralyzed on the left side of his body.

He said the bar entered a "non-eloquent" area of the brain, an area that doesn't have a specific, major known function.

Leite is expected to remain hospitalized for at least two weeks.

27 Photos

Shocking medical scans

[rwsmith29456]

How many ways can you take a pipe through your brain and be able to recover without problems??? I wish that he does have a speedy and uncomplicated recovery.

[RSorge]

This gentleman will be studied six ways from Sunday for the rest of his life. Let us hope it's a long life.

[bobnjersey]

[Doctors say a 24-year-old construction worker survived after a 6-foot metal bar fell from above and pierced his skull]
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sounds similar to the circumstances of phineas gage ... an often cited (early) case showing the affects of brain injury on personality and behavior.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phineas_Gage