A 24-year-old
construction worker survived after a 6-foot
metal bar fell from above and pierced his head, doctors said Friday.
Luiz
Alexandre Essinger, chief of staff of 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 said Leite was lucid and showed no negative consequences after the operation.
"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 laying 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.
SOURCE