WREN Bowell is 2. At her home in Peasedown St John, Somerset, she was racing to show her parents a picture she had just drawn. She tripped over a stair gate. The pencil she was holding – wince now – entered her eye. The pencil passed though her skull and went 1 1/2in into the frontal lobe of her brain.

Wisely, her parents did not fiddle with the pencil. They called 999. After an operation lasting four hours at Frenchay Hospital in Bristol, Wren is recovered.

Medics removed a section of Wren’s skull with the pencil. Plastic plates and biodegradable screws repaired the skull.

Hideous stuff. Add it to the gallery:

Shooting Pains

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HOU Guoying, 65, of China, has a pain in her face. She has been complaining of an agonising headache. Guoying has a bullet embedded near her right jaw and ear, having been accidentally shot with a pistol during the Cultural Revolution in 1967. In 1978, an X-ray revealed the bullet in her head. She declined an opertion, fearing the poor medical facilties woudl get her before the bullet. Last month she has the 3.3cm-long bullet removed.