Builder finally nails cause of toothache

A DENTIST found the source of the toothache Patrick Lawler was complaining about on the roof of his mouth: a 4in nail the construction worker had unknowingly embedded in his skull six days earlier.

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

Following the accident, Mr Lawler had what he thought was a minor toothache and blurry vision. On Wednesday, after painkillers and ice failed to ease the pain, he went to a dental office where his wife, Katerina, works.

“We all are friends, so I thought the (dentists) were joking ... then the doctor came out and said, ‘There’s really a nail’,” she said. “Patrick just broke down. I mean, he had been eating ice cream to help the swelling.”

He underwent a four-hour surgery in a Denver hospital. The nail had plunged one and a half inches into his brain, barely missing his right eye.

“This is the second one we’ve seen in this hospital where the person was injured by the nail gun and didn’t actually realise the nail had been imbedded in their skull,” neurosurgeon Sean Markey told KUSA-TV in Denver.