I fired a 2.5-inch nail into my head ... so the doctor removed it using a claw hammer

George Chandler spoke of his relief after a doctor removed the nail with a claw hammer.

One minute Mr Chandler and a friend were nailing boards and lattice, the next a two-inch pin had pierced his hat, gone through his skull and lodged itself in his brain.

'The gun went off, and I just felt a little sting,' the 60-year-old recalled.

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

That's got to hurt: An X-ray shows how the nail penetrated Mr Chandler's skull

Right here: George Chandler, right, appearing on the Today TV show this morning with best friend Phil Kern

Chandler said he went to hospital with his hat nailed lopsided to his head.

Doctors told him he had barely avoided a traumatic brain injury, as the nail narrowly missed vessels tied to his eyesight, speech and physical movement.

Chandler had been working his friend Phil Kern when the nail gun's hose became entangled with a toy. 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 an ambulance'.

At first the two men couldn’t find where the nail went.

“He asked me if I saw where it went and I said I’m not sure, but I felt something on my head,” Chandler said.

Nailed down: An image of the left side of Mr Chandler's head

That’s when they discovered the nail embedded in the left side of Chandler’s head.

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.

About 40,000 nail-gun injuries are treated in U.S. 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.