A 56-year-old Hong Kong man somehow managed to escape any major injuries after stabbing his brain with a pair of chopsticks (through his eyeballs, no less).
The mentally ill man, who was in the intensive care unit at Princess Margaret Hospital, shoved the eating utensils into the space between his eye sockets and sclera (or outer coating of his eyeballs) in January 2015.
A case report in the latest Hong Kong Medical Journal states that the man — who was suffering from acute psychosis — pulled the chopsticks out himself and, incredibly, suffered no vascular or cranial nerve damage. Although the incident caused two parallel bloodstains in his brain, the patient did not require any surgery as he had also narrowly missed damaging the internal capsules at the center of his brain.
In fact, based on a recreation of the patient’s CT scan (pictured above), which was published in the journal, an opthamologist said the man likely escaped any visual impairment. According to Ming Pao, the only lasting effect that the patient experienced was slightly impaired motor function in his arms.
Neurology and ophthalmology expert Dr. Raymond Cheung called the man a “one in a million” case, while medical staff at Princess Margaret Hospital called the man “lucky” as similar cases often have a high mortality rate, Apple Daily reports.
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