Freak Accident Almost Kills Boston Barber

He needs open heart surgery after falling on his scissors
By Evann Gastaldo,  Newser Staff
Posted Feb 17, 2021 3:54 AM CST

A Boston barber slipped and fell forward onto the floor during a haircut Friday—directly onto the scissors he was holding. "He was walking around the back of the chair and all of a sudden he’s on the floor. I look down and I see blood," Max Cohen, who was getting a haircut from Steve Silva at the time, tells CBS Boston. "He says ‘oh my God, I stabbed myself’ and pulls a set of scissors out of his chest." Silva's colleagues rushed to his aid, and Cohen grabbed something to compress the wound while also talking to Silva in an attempt to help him stay calm. The 29-year-old barber was taken to a nearby hospital and underwent emergency open-heart surgery—the scissors had pierced an artery. He'll be hospitalized at least two weeks, but is expected to make a full recovery, Boston 25 News reports.

"Thank God we’re close to Mass General [hospital]. An inch to the left or right would have pierced his heart, and he would have died on the spot," the owner of Boston Barber Company tells the Boston Globe. He adds that police were initially suspicious, wondering if the incident was a stabbing, rather than an accident, WHDH reports. A GoFundMe campaign is raising money for Silva, who had just that week returned to work after the owner had to lay employees off amid the coronavirus pandemic. But the barber was concerned not just for himself, but for his customer. "He texted me, he just said thanks for everything,” Cohen said. “I asked him how he was doing. He said he was doing well … and then asked me if I got my haircut finished, because he wasn’t quite done yet." (More freak accident stories.)

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