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A 64-year-old man in Italy shocked medical personnel when he was found awake in bed with a crossbow bolt sticking out of his forehead. The man, reportedly a known crossbow enthusiast, was discovered by police after a family member contacted them. He had been there for two days without eating or drinking, but was conscious when he was taken to the hospital.
Dr. Maurizio Iacoangeli, head of Neurosurgery at the Torrette Hospital in Ancona, Italy, said the man arrived conscious, with his eyes open, speaking, but babbling incoherently.
How did the man survive?
“The arrow even prevented him from turning his head,” Iacoangeli told Corriere della Sera. “If the arrow follows the correct path. If it avoids the noble areas of the brain, the so-called eloquent structures, the pericallosal artery, the superior sagittal sinus, the major venous vessels, then it can happen. One millimeter further, and the patient would have died instantly. He was lucky. Or, if you believe it, helped from above.”
Iacoangeli said he was shocked when he looked at the man’s CT scan. “I see this arrow. A dark, straight line crossing the skull from the forehead to the nape of the neck,” he said, adding, “Incredible, but true. It followed a path that we, in the operating room, sometimes choose on purpose: longer but safer. As if it had deliberately avoided vital points. It passed slightly paramedian, not on the midline. An ‘intelligent’ path.”
The doctor also pointed out that the crossbow bolt being made of carbon fiber also helped save the man’s life.
“It didn’t create any artifacts on the CT scan: we were able to study everything clearly,” he said. “The vessels, the structures it passed through, the path. This allowed us to better plan the procedure. Because it’s not so much removing it, it’s removing it without triggering massive bleeding. The arrow acts as a plug. You pull it out and risk the hole opening up.”
A military surgical technique saved the man’s life
After being brought to the hospital, the man was operated on using military techniques performed by a colleague of Dr. Iacoangeli, U.S. Army neurosurgeon Dr. Rocco Armonda, who has been deployed overseas for years and gives lectures on penetrating injuries in war theaters.
Police are currently investigating to determine the cause of the terrifying injury to the man, whose situation, according to Dr. Iacoangeli, “remains extremely delicate.” He does, however, offer hope, saying, “Today, there’s a lot of talk about brain plasticity, that is, the fact that part of the brain compensates for functions lost elsewhere. I firmly believe in it.”