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Doctors Pull Knife from Man's Skull - Three Years after Stabbing

knife in skull
Edeilson Manoel do Nascimento holds X-ray showing a knife that was inside his head at a hospital in Recife, Brazil, on Thursday, Sept. 23, 2010. (AP Photo/Helia Scheppa, JC Imagem)

(CBS/AP) Pain pills are one remedy for chronic headaches, but for one man in northeastern Brazil, doctors used a different approach:

They pulled a knife blade from his brain - three years after he had been stabbed in a barroom brawl.

Edeilson Nascimento, a 29-year-old tire repairman, says he is feeling great now after the three-hour surgical procedure, in which doctors in Recife removed the four-inch blade.

Nascimento says he got into a bar fight in 2007 and was attacked by assailants when he returned home.

At the time, doctors only removed the knife handle, fearing that pulling the blade from his head would cause brain damage.

But three years of intense headaches led Nascimento to take a chance on the surgery.

Doctors say he'll be heading home soon.

Barring complications.

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