Backfiring Nail Gun Gives User Toothache

A Family Dental Center X-ray shows the nail from a nail gun embedded in Patrick Lawler's head. (Kusa-tv Via AP)

LITTLETON, Colo. -- A dentist found the source of the toothache Patrick Lawler was complaining about in the roof of his mouth: a four-inch nail the construction worker had unknowingly embedded in his head six days earlier.

A nail gun backfired on Lawler, 23, on Jan. 6 while he was working in Breckenridge, a ski resort town in the central Colorado mountains. The tool sent one nail into a piece of wood nearby, but Lawler did not realize a second nail had shot through his mouth, said his sister, Lisa Metcalse.

Lawler had what he thought was a minor toothache and blurry vision. When painkillers and ice did not ease the pain, he went to the Family Dental Center, where his wife, Katerina, works.

Surgeons at a suburban Denver hospital removed the nail, which Metcalse said had plunged 1 1/2 inches into Lawler's brain, barely missing his right eye.

Despite his lack of medical insurance and hospital bills between $80,000 and $100,000, Katerina Lawler said her husband is in good spirits.