Ron Hunt, a 41-year-old construction worker working in Reno, Nevada, had a bit of a headache on August 15. While drilling above his head on the jobsite, Hunt fell off a ladder and landed face-first on a drill bit.
When the ladder started to wobble, Hunt tossed the drill aside as he was trained to do. But he then fell directly onto the 18-inch long, 1.5-inch chip auger drill bit. The force of his landing caused the drill bit to puncture his face and skull.
“I ran my hands up the drill bit, up to my eye, and put my other hand in the back of my head and felt it coming through the back of my head,” Hunt told the Associated Press. “And that’s where pretty much the shock set in.”
Amazingly, Hunt survived the freak accident, although he lost an eye. Doctors said that the drill bit pushed his brain aside rather than puncturing through it, which would have caused almost certain death. In the end, the medical staff decided to simply unscrew the bit from Hunt’s skull.
Despite the horrifying accident, Hunt has a positive outlook. “I’m very fortunate I’m not paralyzed or dead,” he told AP.
