A Pencil in His Heart

Nathan King is alive today because his mother was level-headed enough not to try to pull it out

What happened to Nathan King on his 12th birthday last month could be classified as a parent's worst nightmare--except that few parents could even imagine such a freakish accident. Bursting with exuberance, the Helena, Mont., boy bounced a football off the wall of his room, dove onto his bed to retrieve it and somehow drove a No. 2 pencil through his chest and right into his heart. "I kind of felt it go in," he says, "but it didn't hurt, so I looked down. Then I started yelling, 'Mom! Mom! Mom, I'm gonna die!'"

And but for his level-headed mom, that's...

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