A 64-year-old Italian man survived after spending two days with an arrow stuck in his head before being consciously admitted to a hospital in Ancona (central Italy) where he was operated on and remains in critical condition, media reported on Tuesday.
According to initial reports, the man survived two days at home with an arrow lodged in his head, which he had shot himself with his own crossbow, it is unknown whether by accident or in a suicide attempt, EFE adds.
Doctor Maurizio Iacoangeli, head of Neurosurgery at the Torrette Hospital in Ancona, explained that "the patient arrived conscious, with his eyes open. He was babbling incoherently, but he was speaking. He had gone two days without eating or drinking, alone at home. The arrow even prevented him from turning his head," he told the newspaper 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," the doctor explained.
Additionally, the arrow material, carbon, allowed for a good performance of the computed tomography and the surgery could be better planned. "Because it's not so much about removing it, but about removing it without causing massive bleeding. The arrow acts as a plug. If you remove it, you run the risk of the hole opening," he added.
Now it will be necessary to wait "for the patient to survive, as he went two days without eating or drinking and an infection could develop," he pointed out and anticipated that "nowadays there is much talk about brain plasticity, that is, that one part of the brain compensates for lost functions in other parts. I firmly believe in it."