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Tuesday, August 7, 2007

Pencil in woman's head for half a century

Doctors in Berlin have removed a pencil that had been lodged in Margaret Wegner's skull for fifty years. As a child, she tripped while holding the pencil and it went right into her noggin. From The Belfast Telegraph:

The pencil missed an artery and nerve endings in the brain by a whisker. Doctors at the time deemed it too risky to operate. That remained the consensus among many doctors over the years but the large part of the pencil was finally removed.

The 2cm tip is still embedded. It has been overgrown by nerves and blood cells which are too dangerous to cut through.

Link (Thanks, Jennifer Lum!)

posted by David Pescovitz at 10:37:42 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

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Support Bloggers' Rights! HOWTO: Get a link posted to Boing Boing Boing Boing Mobile powered by Winksite Fark rules! This work is licensed under a Creative Commons License permitting non-commercial sharing with attribution. Boing Boing is a trademark of Happy Mutants LLC in the United States [and other countries]. Stats (About our stats) defeat censorware Policies Our first five years' worth of posts in one file	View a recent day: August 20 \| August 19 \| August 18 \| previous days \| by month and year Tuesday, August 7, 2007 Pencil in woman's head for half a century Doctors in Berlin have removed a pencil that had been lodged in Margaret Wegner's skull for fifty years. As a child, she tripped while holding the pencil and it went right into her noggin. From The Belfast Telegraph: The pencil missed an artery and nerve endings in the brain by a whisker. Doctors at the time deemed it too risky to operate. That remained the consensus among many doctors over the years but the large part of the pencil was finally removed. The 2cm tip is still embedded. It has been overgrown by nerves and blood cells which are too dangerous to cut through. Link (Thanks, Jennifer Lum!) posted by David Pescovitz at 10:37:42 AM permalink \| Other blogs' comments View a recent day: August 20, 2007 \| August 19, 2007 \| August 18, 2007 \| August 17, 2007 \| August 16, 2007 \| August 15, 2007 \| August 14, 2007 \| previous days \| all BB archives by month and year Email this entry to: Your email address: Message (optional):	Boing Boing Sponsored by: Your Text Ad Here Get BB by email: