New Kind Of TBI: Man Survives Pool Cue Embedded In His Brain

It never ceases to amaze me how the brain can survive the most exotic, and unwanted, intrusions into its tissue.

The latest such incident to make headlines is the story of Andy Parton, a 31-year-old English man. Parton was playing pool when he lost his footing and fell onto a pool cue, hitting himself in the eye, according to The Sun. The doctors who took care of him didn’t think to perform any extensive tests on Parton: They apparently just put a few stitches in his eyelid and sent him on his way.

Physicians finally figured out that Parton needed more medical help when he still had trouble opening his injured eye for three months, The Sun reported. They finally did an MRI and found that the tip of the pool cue was in Parton’s brain.

http://www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage/news/4218662/Doctors-removed-cue-tip-in-my-brain.html

Brain surgeons at Leeds University Teaching Hospitals did a 10-hour surgery on Parton, taking off part of his skull to get and remove the cue tip, according to The Sun. They also had to rebuild “the top of his nose and brow,” the newspaper reported.

The spokesman for Leeds had a great quote about the successful surgery.

“We are just pleased that Mr. Parton was not snookered by his injury and has gone on to make a full recovery,” the spokesman told The Sun.

And someone posted an apropos comment on The Sun’s online story on Barton’s frightening injury, which could have been fatal.

“Chalk it up to experience,” man wrote.