Some thirteen months after he had expectoration of blood and pus and soon died.

At the necropsy it was seen that the wound had involved both lungs; the posterior wall of the ventricle and the inferior lobe of the right lung were traversed from before backward, and from left to right, but the ventricular cavity was not penetrated.

Strange to say, the blade had passed between the vertebral column and the esophagus, and to the right of the aorta, but had wounded neither of these organs.
O'Connor mentions a graduate of a British University who, with suicidal intent, transfixed his heart with a darning-needle.

It was extracted by a pair of watchmaker's pliers.

In five days the symptoms had all abated, and the would-be suicide was well enough to start for the Continent.