Man shot nail right into his heart before calmly driving himself to the hospital

A Wisconsin farmer proved he's tough as ... well, nails, when he shot himself in the heart with a 3-inch nail and proceeded to calmly drive himself to the hospital for treatment.

Doug Bergeson says he was finishing the fireplace inside a home he was building in June when his nail gun went off, sending a large nail right into his chest.

"I was just bringing the nail gun forward and I was on my tip-toes and I just didn't quite have enough room, and it fired before I was really ready for it, and then it dropped down and it fired again," Bergeson told WBAY.

Bergeson says he didn't fully realize the extend of his injury until he noticed that the nail was moving up and down at the exact same pace which his heart was beating.

“When I saw [the nail] moving with my heart, it’s kind of like, 'I’m not going to get anything done today,'" he joked.

See photos of the injury:

But rather than call for help, Bergeson decided to just get in his truck and take himself to the emergency room -- a 12-mile drive, mind you.

"It seemed like the thing to do!" Bergeson explained. "I felt fine, other than having a little too much iron in my diet."

However, emergency room personnel didn't see quite see the same humor in Bergeson's situation.

They immediately sent him to Aurora BayCare Medical Center in Green Bay, Wisconsin, which was better equipped to handle such emergencies.

Dr. Alexander Roitstein, a cardiothoracic surgeon, explained that Bergeson was extremely lucky to have escaped his accident in such good condition.

"A wrong heartbeat, a wrong position and he would have had a much more complicated problem than he was bargaining for," said Dr. Roitstein. "And so he's quite fortunate from that standpoint."

Thankfully, Bergeson was able to undergo open-heart surgery and the nail was successfully removed with no lasting effects.

It's safe to say that his surgeons nailed it.