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 1 Man Coughs Up Nail — Basic Story

In 1970, a man was mowing his lawn. He felt a pain in his throat. He saw a little bit of blood. The man said that
he was not too worried, but a few hours later it really started to hurt.
The next day, the man said that it felt like he had a hot knife cutting him when he coughed. He also had a high
fever. His family rushed him to the hospital. The doctors found a small nail that had embedded itself in the
man's rib cage.
Doctors gave the man some medicine to help fight an infection. They said that he should be okay. They thought
that the nail would seal itself off in his body. They did not think that he needed surgery to remove the nail.
More than 35 years after the incident, doctors saw the nail again in the man's body. The nail was no longer in
his rib cage. It was now in his lung. Doctors decided that the nail needed to be removed. They made the 84-
year old man an appointment to have it taken out.
Before the day of the appointment, the man was brushing his teeth in the bathroom. He said that he felt a tickle
in his throat. He started coughing. The nail popped right out.
Doctors said that the man is doing fine. They do not think that the nail caused any damage to his health.

 2 Man Coughs Up Nail — Full Story

In 1970, a bizarre gardening accident embedded a small nail deep inside Guy "Bud" Hart's body.
More than 35 years later, the nail made an unexpected return, much to Hart's surprise.
The Placerville man was stunned earlier this month when a coughing fit expelled the inch-long sliver of metal,
completing its decades-long trek inside the 84-year-old's body.
"I didn't think something like that could happen," Hart said.
The story of Hart and his unexpected passenger began in Minnesota back in 1970. While mowing grass one day,
Hart felt a slight pain in his throat and saw a small trickle of blood.
"It was like a bee sting," Hart said. "But I didn't think much of it."
Hart wasn't overly alarmed, but just hours later, the discomfort began.
"The next day, when I coughed, it was like I had a hot knife in there, cutting me," Hart said.
His family rushed him to the hospital with a 105-degree temperature. There, doctors found the culprit, a small
nail that had dropped down inside Hart's body cavity and nestled inside his ribcage.
Doses of penicillin helped Hart heal, but since removing the metal would require major surgery and doctors
suspected the nail would seal itself off in Hart's body, the foreign object was forgotten for years.
"If it ain't broke, don't fix it," Hart said.
Years later, the nail turned up again on a doctor's x-ray, but again, the unobtrusive item was left alone.
Then, three weeks ago, an internal camera captured an image of the nail during a routine doctor's office visit.
But it wasn't in Hart's ribcage area as he'd always thought -- the object was actually in Hart's lung. As Hart and
his doctors made plans to remove the nail once and for all, natural physiology took over.
Hart was in the bathroom, brushing his teeth last week when the 35-year partnership finally came to an end.
"I'd been having this tickle in my throat," Hart said. "Pretty soon, I started coughing. And it plopped right out."
Since the pair were separated, Hart's been feeling fine and doctors have no reason to think the nail had any
lasting impact on his health.
Hart keeps the nail in a small plastic bag but doesn't have any long-term plans about what to do with the strange
artifact.
"Sell it to the Smithsonian Institute?" Hart laughed. "No, I never gave it much thought.

 3 cough

to force air from the lungs

 4 damage

to cause harm

 5 embedded

to set solidly in

 6 fever

a rise of body temperature above normal

 7 incident

an event that happened

 8 infection

having germs in the body

 9 mow

to cut down with a machine

 10 remove

to take out

 11 rib cage

the bones in the chest that help protect organs

 12 surgery

an operation a person has to fix something

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