He wasn't even a Vampire

 In a previous story I related the case of the Cambodian splinter, but now I would like to describe a much larger one I encountered in Newcastle-upon-Tyne very many years ago. The patient was a member of the so-called Newcastle mafia - a notorious crime syndicate family from the Northeast. He had been driving his car at speed, lost control and collided with a stationary wooden picket fence coming in the opposite direction. This resulted in him being impaled through his chest. He was admitted to the emergency department in a state of collapse with the wood protruding from his chest as fortunately the rescue team had the wisdom to not try and remove it at the scene of the accident, electing rather to cut through it in order to free him. The accident and emergency consultant, a dour Scottish man of enormous experience, oversaw his resuscitation and immediately took him to the operating theatre where he found the stake had penetrated his left ventricle but had missed the coronary vessels. He removed the offending object and sutured the puncture wound and, against all the odds, not only did the patient survive, but he also recovered with no appreciable long-term health effects. Upon his discharge he had a quiet word with the consultant saying "If you ever have any problems you need dealing with, just give me a call".

 The picket was duly mounted on the wall over the door in the consultant's office. "This is the biggest splinter you will ever see" he told me over a cup of coffee and a cigarette one day (he was a chain-smoker despite the fact his father had died of lung cancer). He was given to meiosis and had many such stories to tell. Good job the patient wasn't a vampire I thought, but I kept that to myself.