Bullet lodged in man's brain for 23 years

By Myles Burke 22 Apr 2011

A two-centimetre rusted bullet, embedded in the head of a farmer for 23 years, has been removed at a local hospital.

In 1988 Wang Tianqing, who lives in Zhangjiakouin city in northern China's Hebei province, was knocked unconscious on his way home by a blow to the head.

"I thought I'd been hit by a slingshot," said Wang. "I saw a man standing on a hill and thought he'd hit me."

He woke up in a hospital bed, was given anti-inflammatory drugs by the doctors and sent home.

Shortly afterwards he started having epileptic seizures which grew progressively worse over the next two decades.

On a return trip to the hospital for treatment for his convulsions, the bullet was spotted on his CAT scan.

Wang Zhiming, an attending surgeon from Neurosurgical Oncology department, said that the survival rate for being shot in the head would usually be one out of several thousand, but the bullet missed his brain's main veins and not injured his brainstem.

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