Wisconsin man accidentally shoots 3 inch nail into heart - East Idaho News
National

Wisconsin man accidentally shoots 3 inch nail into heart

  Published at

PESHTIGO, Wis. — A Wisconsin man who accidentally shot a nail into his heart is sharing his story and has some advice to people working in the construction industry.

Doug Bergeson was working on a fireplace when his nail gun went off and a nail pierced his heart, WBAY TV reports.

“I was just bringing the nail gun forward and I was on my tip-toes and I just didn’t quite have enough room, and it fired before I was really ready for it, and then it dropped down and it fired again,” Bergeson recalls.

A three-and-a-half inch framing nail fired straight into his heart with the speed of a .22 bullet.

“It didn’t really hurt. It just felt like it kind of stung me. And I looked down and I didn’t see anything and I put my hand there and… That’s not good,” Bergeson says. “When I saw it moving with my heart, it’s kind of like… I’m not going to get anything done today! I can see that already!”

Instead of calling 911, Doug washed up, hopped in his truck and made the 12-mile drive to the emergency room.

nail xray jp

“I just leaned over the security guard and said I’ve got a nail in my chest. It’d be great if you can find somebody to help me out here. I’m just going to sit down,” Bergeson recalls.

Doctors started working on Doug, who was busy texting his wife.

“At the ER,” he texted. That message auto-corrected and Donna Bergeson had no idea what it meant.

When the couple spoke, Doug Bergeson calmly said he was OK, but needed a new shirt.

Donna hurried to the hospital to see her husband.

“A wrong heart beat, a wrong position and he would have had a much more complicated problem than he was bargaining for,” said Dr. Roitstein, cardiothoracic surgeon, BayCare Clinic. “And so he’s quite fortunate from that standpoint.”

Doug says the nail missed a main artery in his heart by the thickness of a piece of paper.

“He was very astute not to remove it, because he remembered Steve Irwin, and that’s what played through his head,” says Dr. Roitstein.

Doug Bergeson has a scar, but no permanent damage.

“It was just something that seals up on its own,” Dr. Roitstein says.

Bergeson admits that he had a very close call.

“Must have had somebody watching over me, because it was close,” Doug says.

Doug says he’s always been careful, but he’s even more cautious than before. He hopes his story will help others recognize the power of nail guns.

“Accidents, they can happen so quickly, and fortunately this one had a good ending,” Bergeson says.

SUBMIT A CORRECTION