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Minn. carpenter shot in the heart with nailgun, survives

Doctors performed open heart surgery and removed the nail ever so carefully; it didn’t pierce anything vital and he was back home two days later

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ST. BONIFACIOUS, Minn. — Eugene Rakow is not one to sit around and clutch a pillow, but that’s what he’ll be doing the next few months.

“The surgeon said I ought to buy a lottery ticket you got to be the luckiest man alive,” said Rakow.

A carpenter by trade, self-made and self-employed he’s the one his wife and seven kids rely on. Friday he was constructing a deck on his neighbor’s house when the nail gun he was using, nailed him. “I was holding it up and I shot the nail in and the nail gun bounced, hit my chest and it went off again,” Rakow explained.

Full story: Carpenter Eugene Rakow shot in the heart with nailgun, survives