He thought he had been stoned, but in fact he had been shot.
A Brazilian medical student has redefined what it means to be “shoot-resistant” after partying for four days with a bullet lodged in his brain. He initially mistook the injury to be caused by a stone.
“I hardly expected something like this to happen,” 21-year-old Mateus Fazio told local media about the freak accident that occurred on New Year's Eve in Cabo Frio, near Rio de Janeiro.
Party Animal was playing on the beach with his friends when he suddenly felt something hit his head.
But Fazio initially thought it was a stone because he “didn't hear” the gunshots.
“It's a bad joke that someone picked up a stone and threw it, but I thought it was a stone,” said the Brazilian, who is studying medicine at the school. told Globo 1. “If there was a noise, I could imagine what it was. But I didn't hear anything, it was completely normal.”
Doctors in the group helped stop the bleeding and iced the wound.
Unaware of what had happened, Mateus returned to the festival. This big time he was swimming in the ocean, partying on the beach, and playing with his friends while the bullet remained in his brain.
It wasn't until four days later that Mateusz realized something was seriously wrong. A party boy, he was driving 320 miles from Rio to his hometown of Juiz de Fora when he started suffering from spasms in his arms.
“I tried to take a nap and woke up because my arm felt a little weird,” recalled the shooting victim, who doesn't remember anything. “I could feel my fingers moving, but I didn't have the confidence to grab anything.”
Shocked, Matheus called the hospital, where doctors discovered he had a 9mm bullet in his head.
“The bullet compressed an area of the brain close to the area that controls the movement of the right arm, causing inflammation,” chief neurosurgeon Flavio Falcometa said, explaining the scientist's symptoms. “This causes the brain to react with movements that manifest as seizures.
Dr Falcometa said the patient was extremely lucky not to have sustained “more serious injuries” such as paralysis of his arm or whole body.
Mateusz then underwent a two-hour surgery to remove the bullet, which risked “bleeding, brain fluid leakage, meningitis and even death,” his mother Luciana recalled. .
Thankfully, doctors were able to remove the projectile without causing any damage. They then sent the bullets to Cabo Frio police, who are now investigating who fired the shots.
The incident is particularly troubling because there were no reports of gunfire on the beach that day, according to military police.
For example, Luciana says that not everyone yet believes this miraculous story.
“The doctors and nurses who saw Mateus could hardly believe it,” she said. “It's inexplicable how someone can get shot in the head and go for four days without feeling anything.”
