Man accidentally fires nail gun into his head

A Minnesota man is lucky to be alive after he accidentally shot himself in the head with a nail gun.  Nick Thompson is bandaged and in a ton of pain but given what he survived, he knows that he is one lucky guy.

"This was the most freak thing that could have happened that I didn't die from.. I don't know what else to say other than that," Nick Thompson says.

Thompson is an experienced home builder and was framing a closet when he had a pneumatic nail gun above his head.  The gun kicked back right into his face and that drove the next nail two inches deep into his skull.

"I didn't even know I had a nail in my eye until we got to the hospital.. and then sitting in the chair. I was like.. take a picture.. take a picture.. I moved my hand. I still didn't think there was a nail in my eye at all," Thompson says.

Thompson was rushed into emergency surgery at Regions Hospital Monay evening where doctors surgically maneuvered the front of his skull to removed the nail.

He now has it as a reminder of just how fortunate he is.

"1 more millimeter and it was a lobotomy. One more millimeter and it was poke my eye out. One more millimeter this way and I was dead. There are so many things that could've gone wrong. I don't know how everything went right," Thompson says.

Miraculously, Thompson has his eyesight.  His brain is functioning as it should and he is expected to make a full recovery though there are some big time concerns about infection.