Unusual craniocerebral injury caused by a pneumatic nail gun.

A man was found unconscious near a ladder in a house. After resuscitation he was brought to a hospital and X-rays of the skull showed that two 12-cm long nails had completely penetrated the cranial cavity. The nails were operatively removed and after treatment for 5 weeks, the patient was transferred to a rehabilitation centre with a decreasing hemiparesis on the left side and general deterioration and then, after an attempted suicide to a psychiatric hospital. The perforating cranio-cerebral injury from a pneumatic nail gun known to reach only low muzzle velocities is a very unusual finding.