Nail surgically removed from man's skull PAUL, Minn., Feb. 7 (UPI) -- Doctors at a Minnesota hospital said they removed a 3 1/4 inch nail that became lodged 2 3/4 inches into the back of a construction worker's head. Jeff Luptak, who sustained the injury when a colleague was handing him a nail gun at a Bismarck, N.D., construction site on Feb. 1, said his doctor at St. Alexius Medical Center in Bismarck gave him three options, the St. Paul (Minn.) Pioneer Press reported Tuesday. Leave it in, it'll rust and you'll die of infection. Pull it out and you'll bleed to death. Or you can go to St. Paul," Luptak quoted the doctor as saying. "So we took the St. Paul option," Luptak said. Never got any painkiller -- didn't need it, didn't feel anything. Dr. Eric Nussbaum, a neurosurgeon at St. Joseph's Hospital in St. Paul, said the surgery to remove the nail was further complicated by the fact that it had penetrated a blood vessel. "It's almost like having your finger in a dike," Nussbaum said. Pull it out, and the hole on the bottom will allow blood to seep into the brain. Nussbaum and colleague Dr. Patrick Graupman said the surgery took about 75 minutes. "Somebody was looking out for me," Luptak said after the procedure.