Mark Johnson, carpenter, nails himself with pneumatic gun

WCCO

Mark Johnson nailed it.

​Mark Johnson is a professional carpenter from New Hope who spends his working life around power tools that can easily turn into dangerous weapons if they aren't handled right.

On Friday, kneeling on the floor while framing up a friend's basement, he mishandled his nail gun -- the one that uses 100 pounds of air pressure to drive three-and-a-half-inch nails into wood.

The tool is supposed to help carpentry jobs move faster, but this time it really slowed him down.

WCCO

​He told WCCO that his shooting hand snagged, the gun went off, and, bam, he'd driven a nail deep into his knee.

WCCO

​Yup, he says, just an occupational hazard--as blood dripped out of his knee in a nightmarish scene and a friend drove him to the Methodist Hospital ER.

WCCO

​Nail guns are attached to powerful air compressors, and he would have been in a lot more pain if the heavy-duty tool had buried a nail directly into his femur. This time, it was just a flesh wound.

WCCO

​No big deal, Johnson told the station. "It just felt like I went on a long bike ride or something."

Tough guy!

Watch Johnson recreate the accident in this video from WCCO.