A furniture salesman and part-time disc jockey was visiting a friend when he answered a knock at the door. Someone armed with a bayonet attacked him and stuck the bayonet into the right side of his skull. The knife penetrated about 6 inches into the man's brain, the tip coming to rest just above his palate. He did not lose consciousness. In fact, he walked several houses down the street and knocked on a friend's door.

The friend called 911.

Jacksonville fire department paramedics rushed the victim to University Medical Center. His injury appeared almost certainly fatal. If the knife had cut any of the dozens of major blood vessels in his brain, or if it had crossed the brain's "midline" from the right hemisphere to the left, he would almost certainly die.

Miraculously, it did neither. The knife was removed in a four-hour surgery. The man did not develop an infection from contaminants on the knife blade itself, and a week after he was attacked, he had recovered enough to leave the hospital.

The patient now says that having a bayonet stuck through his brain was one of the "best things that ever happened" to him, because it gave him the opportunity to pull his life back together. However, he does face some long-term problems. His memory is not what it used to be, and he needs to take medication to prevent seizures — both common effects of his kind of injury.

Since leaving the hospital, he has spent much of his time visiting and speaking to church groups in the Jacksonville area about his experience, and how his injury brought him back to religion.