OAK LAWN, Ill. – Gail Glaenzer still can’t believe that her fiance unknowingly shot a nail into his skull, let alone that he posted a picture of the X-ray on Facebook during his ambulance ride between hospitals for surgery.

Doctors successfully removed the 3¼-inch nail from Dante Autullo’s brain Thursday.

Additional Photos

An X-ray shows a nail embedded in Dante Autullo’s brain. It was removed during a two-hour surgery. The Associated Press

“Dante says, ‘I want it to make a necklace out of it,’ ” Glaenzer said.

Autullo, 32, of Orland Park, was listed in fair condition Friday in the intensive care unit of Advocate Christ Medical Center in Oak Lawn. Glaenzer was still processing just how lucky the father of her four children was.

“He feels good. He moved all his limbs, he’s talking normal, he remembers everything,” said Glaenzer, 33. “It’s amazing, a miracle.”

Autullo was using the nail gun Tuesday when it recoiled near his head, Glaenzer said.

“I looked at it when he got home, and it just looked like (his head) was cut open,” she said.

With nothing to indicate that a nail had not simply “whizzed by his ear,” as Autullo told her, she cleaned it with peroxide.

While there are pain-sensitive nerves on a person’s skull, there aren’t any within the brain itself.

Autullo went on with his day, even plowing some snow. But the next day when he awoke feeling nauseated, Glaenzer suggested they go to the hospital.

After an X-ray, doctors told Autullo and Glaenzer that the nail came within millimeters of the part of the brain that controls motor function.

Hospital spokesman Mike Maggio said the surgery took two hours, and the part of the skull that was removed for surgery was replaced with a titanium mesh.

“He was joking with me, (after surgery), ‘We need to get the Discovery Channel up here to tape this,’ ” she recalled him saying. ” ‘I’m one of those medical miracles.’ “

Related Stories