When we hear about incredible survival stories, we are usually referring to people who got
lost in the wild, such as the recent case of the ultra runner who was hit by a sandstorm
in the Sahara and survived for 10 days eating lizards and scorpions and occasionally finding
some liquid relief in the form of dew.
Then there’s the guy who was swallowed by a sperm whale and lived to tell the tale or
people who have taken as many as 20 bullets and survived.
You might know that rapper 50 Cent took nine, and it didn’t hold him back for long.
Or what about the curious case of the Frenchman who as we speak lives a functional life with
90 percent of his brain missing?
Today we’ll talk about one of the greatest survivors in history, in this episode of The
Infographics Show, Phineas Gage - How Did He Survive?
Phineas Gage has been called “Neuroscience’s Most Famous Patient,” but who was he before
he became a miracle of science?
Not too much is known about his early life, only that he was born in New Hampshire, USA,
in 1823 and had four siblings.
It’s believed as a young man he was strong, tall, and handsome.
Notes found from one of his doctors when Gage was 25 tell us he possessed “an iron will
as well as an iron frame; a muscular system unusually well-developed‍.”
This might have been a reason why later he would become a living legend.
This strong and durable fellow started working on the railroads in his twenties and soon
became a blasting foreman.
The railroads, of course, met with resistance in the form of nature, and sometimes rocks
needed to be blasted away.
To do this, you packed them with explosives, but the packing itself was a hard job.
To do that, you usually bore a deep hole in the rock and filled it with explosives.
Once you had drilled the hole, you then put in the dynamite, but to make sure you really
destroyed the rock from inside out, you then had to pack other materials (often clay or
sand) firmly into the hole.
To do this, the tool of choice was a tamping iron, which is basically an iron rod.
On the fateful day of September 13, 1848, this was the job of Phineas Gage when working
on destroying rocks near Cavendish in Vermont.
As the story goes, Gage was looking behind him where men were working.
As he was about to speak, his tamping iron hit the rock, causing a spark.
The explosives went off, and that tamping iron set off like a rocket in the direction
of Gage’s head.
The measurements of the tamping iron were as follows: 1 1⁄4 inches (3.2 cm) in diameter,
3 feet 7 inches (1.1 m) long, and 13 1⁄4 pounds (6.0 kg) in weight.
That’s about half the length of a javelin and almost the weight of three crowbars.
It’s not something you want plunged into your face at high speed.
The tamping iron went up through his jaw, past his cheekbone, behind his left eye, through
the left side of his brain, and out of the top of his skull.
It’s said it was travelling with such a velocity that the tamping iron ended up some
80 feet (25 meters) away, now adorned with blood and bits of brain.
Talk about an extreme form of lobotomy.
But this strapping young man seemed to take the accident well, or should we say he took
it on the chin well.
While he did convulse, it’s said he soon sat up and talked, and within 30 minutes with
a bit of help, he made it to a chair.
It was there where he met with a physician called Edward H. Williams, who it’s said
was subsequently given “one of the great understatements of medical history.”
That line was the injured man saying, “Doctor, here is business enough for you.”
The doctor later wrote, “The top of the head appeared somewhat like an inverted funnel,
as if some wedge-shaped body had passed from below upward.
Mr. Gage, during the time I was examining this wound, was relating the manner in which
he was injured to the bystanders.
I did not believe Mr. Gage's statement at that time, but thought he was deceived.”
He was telling the truth, and to the doctor’s astonishment, he added a bit more.
He said after the incident he had vomited, but the strain of that vomiting had emitted
bits of brain out of the top of his head.
Gage’s wounds were cleaned.
Some of his bones were reattached, while the holes were left partially open to allow for
drainage.
But what about Gage’s mental state?
Well, he was treated in the following months by a Doctor John Martyn Harlow.
Harlow first remarked on the patient’s state the first few nights, writing, “Mind clear.
Constant agitation of his legs, being alternately retracted and extended like the shafts of
a fulling mill.
Says he 'does not care to see his friends, as he shall be at work in a few days.’”
As for his personality, many changes would happen as often happens to people who have
suffered very serious brain trauma.
The damage done, wrote the doctor, had seriously affected Gage’s “intellectual faculties
and animal propensities,” and at times he wasn’t just very rude to his friends but
on occasion he would utter “the grossest profanity.”
His mother said he couldn’t remember a few things, but it wasn’t all that notable.
Still, even though he could at times say the most horrible things to a person’s face,
it didn’t stop him from working.
However, the railroad where he had previously worked didn’t want him back despite him
being a model foreman.
So much for gratitude.
The Smithsonian tells us that Gage, who became blind in one eye, later did some stable work
in New Hampshire but even traveled as far as Chile to drive coaches.
We guess horses were okay with being cursed at.
Nonetheless, the wound proved too much for Gage, and at the age of 36 he died from seizures
related to his injury.
If anything good came of this, it is that medical science gained valuable information
as to how brain injuries can cause changes in personality.
Reports say that Gage’s friends said he was no longer the same person, not even close.
Once a man of mild and polite temperament, he became an “ill-tempered, shiftless drunk.”
Other medical reports talk about how childish and animalistic he became but also that he
was incredibly whimsical.
One doctor wrote that Gage was, “impatient of restraint or advice when it conflicts with
his desires, at times pertinaciously obstinate, yet capricious and vacillating, devising many
plans of future operations, which are no sooner arranged than they are abandoned in turn for
others appearing more feasible.”
If there is some vocabulary you don’t understand in that, it basically means Gage’s opinions
or plans could turn on a dime.
We should add that some other sources suggest that over time his behavior did improve, which
gives some hope to people who have suffered traumatic brain injury.
Regardless, doctors learned that even with a significant part of the brain gone someone
could complete tasks and live a relatively normal life.
Okay, so Gage lost some of his inhibitions and could be impulsive, but he knew how to
drive a carriage and not crash it.
Even today, the story of Gage is still important when doctors discuss what role the frontal
lobes play and how they are significant in terms of our behavior and personality.
Why he survived is up for debate, but it’s thought that the fact he was already a very
strong man played a part.
Also important was the fact the object was sharp and made a clean exit through his skull.
This lessened the shock to the organ inside.
He was also fortunate that the brain could drain, and he suffered no dangerous infections.
Another reason, wrote a doctor, was, “The portion of the brain traversed was, for several
reasons, the best fitted of any part of the cerebral substance to sustain the injury.”
In other words, if you’re gonna lose some brain, lose that bit.
He was lucky, though, for sure.
According to a story in the Baltimore Sun in 2018, about 20,000 Americans are shot in
the head each year and die, which includes suicide.
We are told if you get a bullet in the head, there is a 5 percent chance of survival, with
only 3 percent of those people going on to live a fully functional life.
If you want to see that famous skull as well as the iron rod that did the damage, you should
visit the Warren Anatomical Museum on the Harvard Medical School campus.
Gage had given the bar to science, what he called “my iron bar” but later demanded
it back, saying it was his “constant companion.”
After he died, science took it back again along with Gage’s skull.
So, what do you think of this story?
Do you know someone else who survived something equally atrocious?
Let us know in the comments.
Also, be sure to check out our other video called Why 2019 will be a horrible year.
Thanks for watching, and, as always, don’t forget to like, share and subscribe.
See you next time!