Man loses leg, keeps on going.

[Gan]

SHIZUOKA, Japan, Aug. 14 (AP) - (Kyodo)—

A 54-year-old man continued to drive a large motorcycle about 2 kilometers Monday after hitting the center divider (http://search.breitbart.com/q?s=) on a national highway (http://search.breitbart.com/q?s=) and losing his right leg below the knee in Hamamatsu, Shizuoka Prefecture (http://search.breitbart.com/q?s=), police said Tuesday.


Kazuo Osada, a salaried worker, was unaware of the loss of his leg until he drove the distance apparently because his attention was focused on the strong pain he felt from the crash, the police said.

The police said Osada failed to negotiate a left turn (http://search.breitbart.com/q?s=) and hit the center divider in a west-bound lane of Route 1's Hamana bypass in Hamamatsu at around 6:30 a.m. Monday.

Osada, who was on his way to Gifu Prefecture (http://search.breitbart.com/q?s=) in a group of about 10 friends, did not fall in the accident and continued the ride before noticing part of his leg was missing, the police said.

http://www.breitbart.com/article.php?id=D8R0J9D80&show_article=1
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Damnnnnnnnnnn.

I wonder if he finally noticed it when he came to a stop and tried to stick out his right leg to hold the bike up. (thump)

I'm suprised he didnt pass out from bleeding out, to be honest.

:injured:

[Gelston]

Reminds me of this story about a carpenter that got a nail shot into his skull and brain by a nail gun. Finished the job first, and then went to the hospital.

[Stanley Burrell]

It reminds me of this guy:

http://www.dartmouth.edu/~lhc/files/images/phineas.gif

[Latrinsorm]

For folks unfamiliar with Phineas Gage (Mr. Spike Through Brain):

The guy didn't even lose consciousness.

I still think the motorcycle guy is better because like Gan said, the blood loss from getting your leg ripped off is generally pretty severe. The only thing I can figure is the friction sealed it off or something? Who knows.

[Gan]

Did the spike miss the Werneke's Region(sp) or the circle of Willis (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Circle_of_Willis)? I cant imagine even a tampanod allowing him to retain conscious for very long. Thats pretty cool.

[Latrinsorm]

I don't think we have that specific information as to which areas of the brain it hit (this did happen a long time ago), but given that he was not only conscious but conversing, I would guess that speech-related areas like Wernicke's were alright.

[TheEschaton]

They couldn't remove it, though, right? They had to keep it in for the rest of his life?

And then they noticed behavior changes, because it went through some behavior controlling area of the brain?

[Gan]

It could not have been for very long considering the risk of infection.

OK DAMNIT, I'M LOOKING IT UP.

[Gan]

Phineas P. Gage (1823 (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1823) – May 21 (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/May_21), 1860 (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1860)) was a railroad construction foreman who suffered a traumatic brain injury (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Traumatic_brain_injury) when a tamping iron accidentally passed through his skull, damaging the frontal lobes (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frontal_lobe) of his brain. This injury is supposed to have negatively affected his emotional (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emotional), social (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social) and personal (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Personality_psychology) traits—leaving him in a temperamental and unsociable state, so much so that his friends said he was "no longer Gage".

On September 13 (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/September_13), 1848 (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1848), Phineas P. Gage was working outside the small town of Cavendish, Vermont (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cavendish%2C_Vermont) on the construction of a railroad (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Railroad) track where he was employed as a foreman. One of his duties involved filling the hole with gunpowder (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gunpowder), adding a fuse, and then packing in sand with the aid of a large tamping iron. Gage was momentarily distracted and forgot to pour the sand into one hole. Thus, when he went to tamp the sand down, the tamping iron sparked against the rock and ignited the gunpowder, causing the iron to be blown through Gage's head with such force that it landed almost thirty yards (27 meters) behind him.

The three foot (1 m) long tamping iron with a diameter of 1.25 inches (3.2 cm) weighing thirteen and a half pounds (6.12 kg) entered his skull below his left cheek bone and exited after passing through the anterior frontal cortex (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cerebral_cortex) and white matter (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/White_matter). Whether the lesion involved both frontal lobes (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frontal_lobe), or was limited only to the left side, remains a matter of controversy. Remarkably, after such a traumatic accident, Gage regained consciousness within a few minutes, was able to speak, and survived a 45-minute ride back to his boarding house while sitting in a cart.

As the doctor arrived, he was reportedly conscious, and had a regular pulse of about 60 beats per minute; although he was getting exhausted from the hemorrhage; which was very profuse.

His left pupil was still reacting to direct light (and stayed that way for the following 10 days), which indicates that the left optic and oculomotor nerves were still functioning, supporting the hypothesis that the tamping iron must have passed laterally to the left optic nerve. After a seemingly complete recovery from such a serious injury, Gage was soon back at work.

While studies by Hanna Damasio (http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Hanna_Damasio&action=edit) and colleagues suggested a bilateral damage to the medial frontal lobes (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frontal_lobe),[1] (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phineas_Gage#_note-return_of_phineas) a recent study by Ratiu and colleagues based on a CT scan of Gage's skull suggests that the extent of Gage's brain injury must have been more limited than previously thought.[2] (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phineas_Gage#_note-ratiu_phineas)

In light of modern medical science, a bilateral damage of the frontal brain by a projectile measuring 1.25 inches in diameter and weighing thirteen pounds, would unlikely be compatible with survival, since this would imply an extensive damage to vital vascular structures, such as the superior sagittal sinus (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Superior_sagittal_sinus) (however, the rod did not emerge exactly in the midline, and may have missed the sinus by passing beneath it). Nevertheless, Gage survived the traumatic event and complications by a fungal infection and over-exercise. Gage later reportedly developed personality changes.

Some months after the accident, probably in about the middle of 1849, Phineas felt strong enough to resume work. But because his personality had changed so much, the contractors who had employed him would not give him his place again.

When he was well enough again in or around 1850, he spent about a year as a sideshow attraction and at P. T. Barnum (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/P._T._Barnum)'s New York museum, putting his injury, and the tamping iron which caused it, on display to anybody willing to pay for the show. He then worked as an assistant in New Hampshire and, for nearly seven years, as a coach driver in Chile (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chile). When his health started to fail in 1859, he returned to San Francisco, where he lived with his mother and, for some months before his death, was employed as a farm worker. In 1860, he began to have epileptic seizures and died a few months later.

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/b/b0/Phineas_Gage_CGI.jpg