Miami, FL (WSVN) - A Florida teenager has survived a frightening encounter with a spear-gun.
Doctors at Miami's Jackson Memorial Hospital worked fast after 16-year-old Yasser Lopez was brought to the with a 3-foot spear shot straight through his skull on June 7.
Doctors say his friend shot it accidentally as they got ready to go fishing. It was about one inch above his right eye straight through, and doctors say you could feel the tip under the skin on the posterior part of the skull.
Rescuers had to use a re-bar tool to cut down 18-inches of stainless steel spear to even fit in the head scanner.
Trauma doctors determined the tip of the spear inside lopez's head was actually a screw tip.
"It was possible for us to figure out a strategy during the operation to be able to unscrew the tip of the spear, instead of having to get this whole spear dragged out through his brain," said Dr. Ross Bullock, the neurosurgeon who performed the surgery.
Miraculously, the three-foot shaft somehow missed every major blood vessel in the brain and pierced the right, not left side of his brain, sparing his speech. He can, for example, he says he's not having pain.
As for the day he got shot, Lopez knows nothing. He probably won't ever regain those memories.
Lopez was moved out of the intensive care unit, and has another two to three months of rehabilitation ahead of him. Doctors expect him to make a near-full recovery.