The next time the conversation turns to tough old guys, you might want to save a place on the list with John Wayne for 73-year-old Dale Carman, who had a nail embedded in his heart while mowing his lawn and told his wife it was only a flesh wound.
Lucky for Carman, his wife, Louise, knew that he was injured more seriously than he thought. After demanding that he go to the hospital, she impressed on emergency room personnel that he was in more pain and worse shape than he would let on.
Carman, a big man who laughed often while telling his story to TODAY’s Natalie Morales, recounted how he had been mowing his lawn Oct. 5 in Stony Brook, N.Y. on Long Island when he felt something hit him on the right side of his chest.
“I was almost sure it was merely a stone thrown up, and at first maybe I’d probably got a cracked rib,” he said. “I mowed another 120, maybe 130 feet.” Then, he said, “I looked...
