This patient was very nice and quite easy to work with. He was thankful and did well, but it was all in Spanish. I do medical Spanish, but how do you ask if there is a barb in the nail that is buried to the hub in your lower leg?
Now notice the nail on the X Ray above... nail-gun injuries used to be so ho-hum, but the folks who make the nails figured out that if you put barbs in them that they will not back out of the wood over time. Problem is, they don't back out of bone too well either. No matter! A little propofol and a mighty pull with some vice-grips and we were done, but, this muchacho will always have a small piece of barb in his tibia. A reminder of the day he said whatever 'oops' is in Spanish.
