Dennis Hennis, of Vineland, New Jersey, miraculously survived after accidentally firing a nail into his heart.
He was doing some repair work on a neighbor's roof near South Mill Road using the gun when it jammed.
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‘Like I've done a hundred times before, just undo it,’ he told ABC News.
‘But it wasn't doing so well, and I had turned it a little too far, and pop, it felt like someone poked me right in the chest.'
A three and a half inch nail shot into the 52-year-old’s chest, puncturing the right side of his heart.
As paramedics rushed to his aid, Hennis held onto the nail that was poking out of his heart.
They were unable to airlift him to Cooper University Hospital because of some bad fog so set off by ambulance instead.
During the journey Hennis went into cardiac arrest. CPR attempts wedged the nail in further, making a larger hole in his heart.
'I thought I was really gone, I really did,' said Hennis.
As soon as the fog lifted a helicopter took him to the hospital where he was given life-saving surgery by a team of cardiac and trauma surgeons.
'You're talking about a puncture wound to the heart,' said Dr. Michael Rosenbloom.
'He's very lucky. There are so many things that had to take place for him to be alive.'
Despite his harrowing ordeal, Hennis has pledged to get back to work as soon as he has recovered, adding that he will be much more careful in future.
‘Safety first,’ he said.
Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2126087/Dennis-Hennis-accidentally-shoots-nail-OWN-heart-Vineland.html#ixzz1rZC5uwp2
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