MAN SURVIVES NAIL IN BRAIN.

Byline: Amy Raisin Staff Writer

VALENCIA - The X-ray looks like a hoax image found on some Internet site, but the 3 1/4-inch nail lodged in Jorge Hernandez's brain was no laughing matter.

One look at the entry wound just below Hernandez's right nostril and the massive incision on his forehead held together by fresh sutures shows just how close a call he had.

``I am very lucky. I'm just thankful that everybody was here to help me so much,'' Hernandez said Wednesday as he was being released from the hospital five days after surgery. Dr. Rafael Quinonez, the neurosurgeon at Henry Mayo Newhall Memorial Hospital who removed the nail, said Hernandez was a lucky man indeed.

``Winning the lottery is easier than coming through this without any problems the way he did.''

A construction worker from Los Angeles, Hernandez, 25, was working a job in Canyon Country last week, assembling ladders with a nail gun, when he hit a piece of metal instead of the intended hole.

It wasn't until he saw his face in the car mirror that he realized the burning sensation he felt on the right side of his face was not from striking his nose with the butt of the nail gun, but something much more gruesome.

``I felt a strong impact on my face, but I didn't fall back,'' Hernandez said in Spanish. ``My face felt hot, but I didn't have a headache.''

What he was actually feeling was the nail that had ricocheted off the metal and traveled through his eye socket before becoming embedded deep in his brain.

Surgery to remove the nail took nearly three hours and involved a trauma team, a brain surgeon and an eye surgeon.

The native of Mexico and father of three young daughters never panicked, not even when he discovered the true nature of his injury. His wife, Ana, however, was distraught when she was summoned to Newhall Memorial and still found it hard to fight back the tears as her husband was being released.

``I was very worried he was going to lose his eye, or that he was going to die,'' she said. ``But I know he's OK now because he's back to his fighting self. And he's eating everything.''

Dr. Craig Helm, an eye surgeon who helped remove the nail, said Hernandez could easily have been killed by the accident.

``The nail had just missed the eye itself, but it was still in the eye orbit, or socket,'' Helm said. ``I'm amazed. His vision is absolutely normal. As unfortunate (as he was) that this happened to him, he's very fortunate that he's alive.''

In an odd twist, the force with which the nail was shot into Hernandez's head worked in his favor, according to Quinonez.

``It was a very clean track,'' Quinonez said. ``We repaired the brain. There was very little bleeding.''

Doctors took muscle from Hernandez's temporal area to refill and repair the brain tissue disturbed by the nail.

Dr. Lakhbinder Dhanda, who has been documenting the surgery and recovery process, said Hernandez narrowly escaped much more serious injury.

``A few more centimeters and he would have been paralyzed for the rest of his life,'' he said.

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2 photos

Photo:

(1 -- color) Neurosurgeon Rafael Quinonez of Henry Mayo Newhall Memorial Hospital shows Jorge Hernandez an X-ray taken of the 3 1/4-inch nail embedded in Hernandez's skull after a nail gun misfired last week. Hernandez apparently suffered no lasting injuries.

(2 -- color) Construction worker Rafael Hernandez holds the nail that was lodged in his brain after a nail gun misfired last week.

David R. Crane/Staff Photographer