A man in South Africa survived being stabbed in the face with a knife that was stuck in his head for over three days.
The amazing case was documented in a study published by the British Medical Journal yesterday by doctors Dairui Dai, Silke Meyer, Lars Christian Kaltheuner and Frank Plani.
In it the 25-year-old patient said at first he didn't even know he had been stabbed with the nearly 11cm long knife.
The stabbing happened when he tried to help a friend who was being attacked.
"After the fight I went home trying to clean up so I can take a nap," he said.
"My friends showed up [and] took me to the hospital.
"We had little argument because… I didn’t feel that I was [stabbed]."
When he finally walked into a clinic in Soweto the next day, the man complained only of a headache and bit of pain when moving his left eye.
After an X-ray revealed the blade of a knife lodged in his head the seriousness of his injuries then became apparent.
He was then taken to the Chris Hani Baragwanath Academic Hospital emergency department where it was another 24 hours before a plan of action was decided upon by doctors.
It was 84 hours after the attack before the knife was carefully removed from his head in surgery.
"Don’t play hero when someone is carrying a knife or a gun," the victim warned others after the successful surgery.
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