Cali man impaled thru the eye with a 19" drill bit
 

Man survives horrific construction accident.
This x-ray shows the drill that went through Ron Hunt's head.

http://www.ampiezza.com/stuff/drillbit.jpg

Truckee, California resident Ron Hunt, who has been dubbed "Miracle Man" by friends, survived being impaled through the eye with an 18-inch long, 1 1/2-inch diameter chip auger drill bit.

While using a drill above his head on Aug. 15, the six-foot ladder he was standing on started to wobble, Hunt's nephew Ben Hunt said. "The ladder started to 'walk' on him," Ben said. "He lost his balance and threw the drill down - which is normal for us (construction workers)."

Then, he fell off the ladder face-first and onto the drill, which went through his right eye and out his skull, just above his right ear. According to Ben, doctors told him the drill pushed his brain aside, rather than impaling it, which could have caused further - and most likely vastly more extensive - damage.

Ron was airlifted by Care Flight to Washoe Medical Center in Reno, where Ben and his father (Ron's brother) Chris met him in the emergency room.

"The nurses braced us for it before we saw him," Ben said. "It didn't seem real - it seemed like a movie. I wasn't sure what to feel."

Ben said at that point the nurses had cleaned him up, but the drill was still in. Still, Ben said his uncle was doing better than he expected. "He was talking, telling jokes," he said. "It didn't seem possible for him to be alive, seeing him with a drill bit through his head."

Corrin Keck, a friend of Ron's, said other than loss of sight in his right eye, she has not seen any major effects. "At this point, we haven't noticed any problems with his motor skills and speech." She did say that he, obviously, is in some pain, but he is dealing with it.

In addition, Ben said he has suffered "a little bit of nerve damage in his face - his smile is a little different on that side."

Ron was in surgery again Monday, getting titanium plates put in underneath his eye and on the side of his head, Keck said.

The hardest part, she said, is he was not insured for the job he was performing. According to Ben, he did have insurance, but for this particular job he was listed as a sub-contractor, and was not covered under his insurance.

Keck has begun to organize fund-raisers for his hospital bills, which are already starting to accumulate. She said he already has a bill from Care Flight and the medical procedures he has gone through. Keck said she does not know how much the bills will amount to, but she hopes to simply help out.

In addition to fund-raisers, Keck set up the "Ron Hunt Medical Fund" at Bank of the West. Donations to the Ron Hunt Medical Fund may be made at any Bank of the West.

Although the loss of sight and nerve damage is not to be taken lightly, Ron's family and friends are looking on the bright side. Ben said the accident could have been much worse - anywhere from major brain damage to death - so everyone is very thankful he didn't suffer more damage.

He will get a glass eye, Ben said, and half-joked, "He'll just have a lazy eye."

"You don't get that many chances in life," Ben said. He said he and Ron's family and friends were thankful he did not suffer worse and he thanked "all the people who called and for their prayers."

He added, "Care Flight did really well - they got him down to the hospital real quickly. One of the Care Flight nurses came in later to see how he was...she showed some real care for him."

For the future, Ben said Ron had not said if he was going to return to work or not. "At first we didn't think he'd ever work again. He's thankful for his second chance," Ben said.

Ben did say, however, that Ron is using this as a positive experience. "It's just going to be one of those stories," Ben said. "He'll joke around with his glass eye and pop it out..."

screw that guy

It has nothing to do with me! I stayed in and was 100% sober all weekend

the pic looks fake

OUCH !! ...

I bet he gets to wear one of those cool black eyepatches tho.

but it's not... shit was on the local Hawaii news last night... had the guy talking and everything.

It looks fake but is real.

They had it on CNN this morning.

I wonder if its real.
If it is, damn thats pretty good stuff!

they said it took hours to literally carefully unscrew the thing from his head.

fucking OUCH!!!

yea its real, i seen it all over the place

talk about headache

It's not the first time something like this happens, amazing but true.

i dont know if any of you caught the show on discovery last week about amazing miracle rescues...but it had a person impaled throught the forehead with a iron rod..lived and was fully functional... a kid who shot themselves in the head..bullet made a path clean through the brain..lived and is fucntionable..

the best was the tree trimmer that was impaled through his asshole by a huge tree branch as thick as a my arm..went straight up through his ass and into his chest cavity..a long long healing process..but missed all of his major organs...the crazy part was looking at the dr's faces as they stood there in shock as to what the fuck to do with a man laying on the table with a tree limb hanging out his ass.
:helpme

great pic Amp!

Too bad his name wasn't "Mike".

"Mike Hunt gets drilled- story at 11"

We were talking about this on the board the other day.

wild shit can happen to you at anytime.

AHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!

Perfect.

What about that cop that got covered in liquid hydrogen, and then smashed to pices by an Austrian guy, but somehow managed to crawl together when he defroze!

think I read about that somewhere

word.... it's fucking scary that crazy shit like that can happen to anyone in the blink of an eye. (no pun intended) One minute you're just doing your thing, and the next you're fuxored.

I caught it when it came on the local news.

The guy was in his living room with a patch over his eye re-enacting the shit like it was nothing hahaha

LA News is better than anything on TV hahah

what? this is unbelievable, another story at Believe it or not. :1orglaugh

"Ron was in surgery again Monday, getting titanium plates put in underneath his eye and on the side of his head, Keck said."


he's becoming a Terminator.

That is so going to leave a mark! EEK!

sorry I must have missed them previewing the terminator on the discovery channel :1orglaugh