This man, believed to be 53-years-old, shot himself in the heart twice with a crossbow.

Doctors saved him by temporarily removing his heart out of his body, repaired the damage and then replaced his heart back in his chest.


The 53-year-old, whose name has not been released, was rushed to hospital in Russia's second city of St Petersburg with two arrows stuck in his heart.

He was still conscious and told medics that he had tried to commit suicide because he did not want to live anymore.

He had shot himself a second time after he was shocked to find that he had not succeeded in killing himself with his first attempt.

The arrows were so long that doctors had to cut off the ends of the shafts so that he could be x-rayed for a tomography.

One of the arrows had passed through the man's left ventricle, mitral valve and left atrium, while the second one had entered from the side of his abdominal aorta.

The man was first taken to St Petersburg's GBUZ Elizabethan Hospital but it did not have the facilities or expert staff needed to treat him so he was transferred to the Federal Almazov North-West Medical Research Centre.

Cardiac surgeons there carried out the high-tech surgery to temporarily remove the heart in a cardiopulmonary bypass.

They kept their patient alive with a heart-lung machine while they removed the arrows and then sewed up the wounds using his own heart tissue.

Doctors described the man’s condition as "stable but serious".

Police are looking into the incident and have declined to comment further pending the outcome of their investigation, DailystarUK reports.