The tradie who accidentally shot himself in the heart with a nail gun and lived to tell the tale

Thinking back to the moments after he accidentally shot a nail into his own heart, it’s the pressure more than the pain that Mark Hardeman remembers.

While working on a timber wall frame in November, the 62-year-old mistakenly sent the 7.5-centimetre metal projectile into his chest with a nail gun.

Thank you: Mark Hardeman (centre) reunited with paramedics and neighbour Meabh Cullinane (third from left) at his Cheltenham home.Credit: Simon Schluter

Hardeman fell to the floor of his home garage in Cheltenham, in Melbourne’s south-east, where he was working, and lay there unable to move.

“It felt like an elephant was sitting on my chest,” he says.

“The pain was this constant pressure, getting stronger and stronger.

“There was no blood at all. That’s the funny thing.”

Close call: the nail is circled in this X-ray taken at The Alfred hospital.

Nine months later, Hardeman realises just how lucky he was.

He recently thanked some of his saviours in person, including Ambulance Victoria paramedics, for saving his life.

“I just wanted to hug them all, and tell them how grateful I am for what they did,” he says, also acknowledging his surgeon and nurses.

On the afternoon of November 8, he was rushing to finish constructing a wall frame for a client.

Getting better: Mark Hardeman with his sons (from left) James, Adam and Matthew.

Ignoring the safety rule to always aim a nail gun forward, he shot a nail from the side of the frame and it went through the wood, ricocheting off some knots and into his chest.

“It was stupid of me, but it’s something I’ve got to live with,” he says.

He remembers a bang.

“I just looked at it, dropped my nail gun, and went over to a corner of the garage to lie down. I saw the nail head, it was right in, hard.”

His first piece of luck was that neighbour Meabh Cullinane saw him collapse and called triple zero.

Hardeman’s youngest son, James, 23, arrived minutes later, having by chance been let out of work early. James says his dad was frothing at the mouth, convulsing and losing consciousness.

He held his hand and said, “Hang in there, Dad”, but it didn’t look good.

Mark remembers a paramedic saying, “What have you done, buddy?” and cutting his clothing. He saw bright lights, then passed out.

MICA paramedic Al Gailey says in over 35 years with Ambulance Victoria, he hadn’t before seen a nail gun injury to the heart. “I was surprised that he ended up surviving it. He’s a very fortunate man.”

Mark Hardeman with Ambulance Victoria MICA paramedic Al Gailey.Credit: Simon Schluter

Gailey said the nail was pulsating in Hardeman’s chest, indicating it was resting on or had penetrated the heart.

It turns out the nail had struck Hardeman in the right ventricle, the lower-pressure part of the heart. Blood was slowly oozing into the sac that surrounds the heart. Had the nail penetrated the left ventricle, it would have been worse because it ejects blood all around the body under pressure.

And had Hardeman gone into cardiac arrest, paramedics would not have been able to do chest compressions, which could have done more damage.

‘I’ve had a second chance at life and you don’t get those.’

Mark Hardeman

Paramedics gave him oxygen, a painkiller and intravenous fluids, and hoped he would survive until he got to hospital.

At The Alfred in Prahran, Hardeman had surgery to remove the nail. He was in hospital for 11 days, six of those in intensive care.

But when he got home he had yet more luck, in an extraordinary way. He started feeling out of breath, and subsequent scans found that two of the valves in the heart weren’t working properly.

“My surgeon said, ‘You could have had a stroke within a year’. He said, ‘This has got nothing to do with the accident’,” Hardeman says.

“I was shocked.”

These days he has a pacemaker, “so when my heart rate drops down, it will kick in and regulate it”.

Hardeman says he has “scars all over”, but is happy to be alive.

“I’ve had a second chance at life and you don’t get those,” he says.

“It’s just a weird feeling that I’ve just been so lucky.”

Fellow tradies are shocked and asked “how the hell” he survived the accident. Hardeman advises them to be careful and stay behind the nail gun.

“I just want to teach people the dangers of tools and power tools – you’ve just got to use them properly, and think,” he says.

“If someone wanted me to go to a school and talk to apprentices, especially, and get it into their heads, the importance of it, I’m more than happy to do it.”

Mark Hardeman with the paramedics who helped save his life, (from left) Lia Wassell, Al Gailey, Philip Williams and Glenice Winter.Credit: Simon Schluter

Hardeman, who is married with three adult sons, is a little angry at himself for not being more careful. He is back to working as a carpenter. While he still feels the effects of trauma, he says he’s “getting over it”.

“I don’t stress as much as I used to. It’s changed my life. My health is back to maybe 95 per cent, and I’ve got a whole new lease on life, basically.”

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