Miami teenager has spear removed from head and survives (VIDEO)

An American teenager is recovering after having a three-foot spear removed from his head.

USA Today reports that 16-year-old Yasser Lopez was accidentally shot in the head by a friend who was loading a spear gun during a fishing trip near his Miami-Dade home on June 8.  The spear entered less than 2 inches above his right eye and came out the back of his skull.

Lopez was rushed by paramedics to the University of Miami Jackson Memorial Hospital, where he arrived conscious, according to ABC news.

"It's a striking injury," said Dr George Garcia, an assistant professor of surgery at the Army Trauma Training Center, told NBC Miami. "It's something you don't see every day, to have a patient awake and speaking with a 3-foot spear through his head."

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Associated Press says Miami-Dade Fire Rescue tools were used to cut the spear so Lopez could be X-rayed, and the rest of the spear was removed in a three-hour surgery.

Lopez has moved out of the hospital’s Intensive Care Unit, says Fox News, and is now sitting up and speaking a few words.  Brain scans since his surgery show the spear caused relatively little damage to his brain.

The Miami New Times remarks that the "Jackson Memorial Hospital is on something of a streak," having successfully treated the face-eating victim Ronald Poppo last week.

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