Student thought he was hit by a rock, actually had a bullet in his head — and partied for days
He thought he’d been stoned but he’d actually taken a shot.
A Brazilian medical student redefined “having a high shot tolerance” after partying for four days with a bullet lodged in his brain — which he’d initially mistaken for an injury from a rock.
“Little did I know that all this would happen,” Mateus Facio, 21, told local media of the freak accident, which occurred on New Year’s Eve in Cabo Frio, near Rio De Janeiro.
The party animal had been hanging out with friends on the beach, when all of a sudden, he felt something strike him in the head.
However, Facio initially thought it was a rock as he “didn’t hear” the gunshot.
“I thought it was a stone, a bad joke, that someone picked up and threw a rock,” the Brazilian, who studies medicine in school, told Globo 1. “If there was a noise, I could imagine what it could be. But I didn’t hear anything, it was completely normal.”
A doctor who was with the group helped staunch the bleeding and put ice on the wound.
Oblivious to what had transpired, Mateus returned to the festivities. The reveler swam in the ocean, partied on the beach and hung out with his pals, all while he had a bullet lodged in his brain.
It wasn’t until four days later that Mateus realized something was seriously wrong. The party boy had been driving 200 miles from Rio to his hometown of Juiz de Fora when he started suffering from arm spasms.
“I went to take a nap and woke up with my arm feeling a little silly,” the oblivious gunshot victim recalled. “I felt my fingers moving, but I didn’t have the confidence to pick something up.”
Alarmed, Mateus reported to the hospital, where doctors revealed that he had a 9mm bullet in his head.
“The bullet was compressing the brain in an area close to the region responsible for the movement of the right arm, causing irritation,” explained presiding neurosurgeon Flávio Falcometa while describing the scholar’s symptoms. “This led to the brain to respond with movements that manifested as convulsive episodes.
Falcometa said the patient was extremely lucky that he didn’t sustain “more serious damage” such as paralysis of his arm or even his whole body.
Mateus subsequently underwent a two-hour operation to remove the bullet, during which he ran the risk of “bleeding, leakage of cerebral fluid, meningitis, and even death,” his mother Luciana recalled.
Thankfully, doctors successfully extracted the projectile sans causing any damage. They then sent the bullet to police in Cabo Frio, who are currently trying to find out who fired the shot.
The case is particularly vexing as there were no reports of any shootings that day on the beach, according to military police.
Luciana, for one, says everyone is still in disbelief over the miraculous saga.
“The doctors and nurses who saw Mateus could hardly believe it,” she said. “A person spending four days with a bullet in their head and not feeling anything is inexplicable.”
