After surgery to remove a three-inch nail from his neck, Ohio construction worker Josh Hartwell is considering a new career.

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The Port Clinton man was reaching for a soft drink May 7 when he felt like he was punched in the neck. In actuality, he was in the neck with a nail from a construction nail gun, The Columbus Dispatch reported.

The nail pierced his third cervical vertebra, pinned up against the vertebral artery, and somehow missed his spinal cord, carotid artery, trachea, esophagus and all the other vitals by millimeters.

No one in the area had ever handled a surgery like removing a nail from someone's neck, said neurosurgeon Dr. Atom Sarkar. "It could have been a very long day."

The surgery took about two hours to complete and all Hartwell has to show for it is a scar running from his ear to his Adam's apple.

He said he would not go back to construction work and was thinking about a career in art and possibly returning to college.