(Dexter, MO) A nail left lodged in a man's chest helps save his life. 17-year-old Matt Robinson says he was building a barn near Dexter, Missouri when the accident happened.

A Missouri teenager is lucky to be alive.

ST. LOUIS -- When is a nail in the heart a good thing Matt Robinson might say it's when the nail plugs its own hole. The 17-year-old Dexter, Mo., boy was working on a barn when a colleague passed a nail gun to him down a ladder.

WORCESTER - The former owner of a pallet-rebuildi ng company in Gardner is on trial on perjury charges for allegedly lying under oath at a hearing on an injured employee's workers' compensation claim.

CAPE GIRARDEAU, Mo. (KFVS) - Can you imagine getting shot in the heart - and then living to tell the tale A 17-year-old from Dexter will be telling the story for years to come.

Can you imagine getting shot in the heart - and then living to tell the tale A 17-year-old from Dexter will be telling the story for years to come. It turns out he survived because he left the nail in his heart until he got to the hospital. "I thought I was going to die," Matt Robinson says. You would too if you shot a nail through your heart.

Matt Robinson of Dexter gives the phrase "shot through the heart" a whole new meaning. The 17-year-old knows that he is lucky to be alive just a few weeks after he shot a three-and-a-hal f-inch nail through his heart.