WASHINGTON, UNITED STATES: A Kansas man got more than he bargained for while remodeling his deck - a nail shot into his head from a nail gun - but says he is feeling fine after a doctor removed it with a claw hammer.

One minute George Chandler and a friend were nailing boards and lattice, and the next minute the 60-year-old from Shawnee, Kansas had a five-centimeter nail embedded in his skull and brain.

"The gun went off, and I just felt a little sting," Chandler told the Kansas City Star in a Wednesday article on the newspaper's website.

"I'm fine, really," he added. "I was very surprised and very lucky."

Chandler said he went to hospital with his hat nailed lopsided to his head. Doctors there told him he barely avoided a traumatic brain injury, as the nail narrowly missed vessels tied to his eyesight, speech and physical movement.

Chandler had been working Friday (June 6th) with his friend Phil Kern when the nail gun's hose became entangled with a toy, according to the newspaper. As Kern tried to untangle it, the gun went off.

Kern, 59, said he looked down and "saw the nail in his head... and immediately called 911."

Chandler was admitted to Overland Park Regional Medical Center, where instead of a surgical operation a doctor removed the nail with a claw hammer from the hospital's maintenance department, the paper reported.

About 40,000 nail-gun injuries are treated in US emergency rooms each year, according to experts at the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health. Most people treated for wounds are struck in the legs, hands and feet, while 100 to 400 suffer such injuries to the head each year.