Woman’s head pencil-free after 55 years

BERLIN – A woman who had a pencil lodged in her head for 55 years after a childhood accident has finally had most of it removed, which should end her chronic headaches and nosebleeds, her doctor said Tuesday.

Margaret Wegner was 4 when she fell while carrying the 3.15-inch pencil, which went through her cheek and into her brain.

“It bored right through the skin and disappeared into my head,” Wegner, now 59, said. “It hurt like crazy.”

At the time, the technology did not exist to safely remove the pencil, so Wegner had to live with it – and the ensuing headaches and nosebleeds.

But on Friday, Dr. Hans Behrbohm, an ear, nose and throat specialist at Berlin’s Park-Klinik Weissensee, was able to identify the exact location of the pencil so that he could determine the risks of removing it, and then took most of it out.

And now Wegner will no longer have the headaches and nosebleeds, and her sense of smell should return soon, Behrbohm said.