Man shoots himself in the head with foot-long harpoon and survives

You"ve got to be pretty foolhardy to fire a 12-inch harpoon into your own eye – and pretty lucky to live to tell the tale. Bruno Coutinho, 34, managed both.

The Brazilian was cleaning the loaded firearm, which he uses to go fishing, when he accidentally set it off and fired the spear into his left eye socket.

However, doctors were amazed when Mr Coutinho – who lives in Petropolis, 40 miles north of Rio de Janeiro – arrived at Santa Teresa hospital 10 hours after the incident, still in a lucid state.

He underwent a four-hour operation which saw the harpoon removed and, miraculously, he suffered no brain damage whatsoever.

A second operation to try to save the sight in Mr Coutinho"s left eye proved unsuccessful but Dr Orlando Maria, chief of neurosurgery at the hospital, said it was ‘a matter of millimetres" that saw him survive at all as the harpoon missed every major artery inside his skull.

A digital illustration of Mr Coutinho"s injuries show just how lucky he was 

‘The object, it seems, took a path where it didn"t damage any vital structures, any vascular structures and was taken out," Dr Maria explained.

Neighbours who ran to Mr Coutinho"s aid described it as ‘like something you only see in a movie".

He has remained in intensive care since the operation last week, but is expected to be released in the next few days.