By EMS1 Staff
MIAMI, Fla. — A South Fla. teen is recovering from being shot in the head with a three-foot spear earlier this month.
While he was getting ready to go fishing with a friend on June 7, a speargun accidentally went off, impaling Yasser Lopez, 16, in the head, according to WSVN 7.
Air rescue took him to Jackson Memorial Hospital (JMH) securely strapped to a backboard.
"It's a striking injury," Dr. George Garcia, a JMH trauma surgeon, told WSVN. "It's something you don't see every day to have a patient arrive awake and speaking with a three-foot spear through his head."
The spear missed all major blood vessels in Lopez's brain, JMH doctors said at a press conference Monday. It entered the boy's head about an inch above his right eye and went straight through the skull.
It pierced the right side of the brain, sparing his speech.
"His words are actually amazingly easy to understand," said Dr. Ross Bullock, neurosurgeon at JMH.
No one made what some doctors say is the most common mistake: Attempting to pull the spear out.
Rescuers had to use a re-bar tool to cut the spear down to 18 inches in order to get it to fit in the scanner, according to WSVN.
After speaking to the family, rescuers learned that the spear's tip could be unscrewed, according to NY Daily News, and were able to remove it before attempting to extract the spear from Lopez's head.
Only one surgery was required to remove the spear, and Lopez's brain is only showing a small bit of swelling, according to WSVN.
He was moved Monday from the intensive care unit to another division of the hospital. Lopez faces a recuperation time of two to three months.
VIDEO
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