A man who was shot through the skull with an arrow by a friend trying to knock a fuel can off his head survived with no brain damage, doctors say.

Surgeons removed the arrow from Anthony Roberts’ head by drilling a larger hole around the tip at the skull’s back and pulling the arrow through.

Roberts, 25, was shot Saturday at the friend’s home in Grants Pass, about 200 miles south of Portland. No charges were filed against his friend.

Paramedics saved his life by restraining him when he tried to pull the arrow out himself in the helicopter on the way to University Hospital in Portland, said Dr. Johnny B. Delashaw.


“If he had succeeded, the flanges slicing through his brain would have killed him instantly,” said Delashaw, a neurosurgeon at the hospital. The arrow’s tip went 8 to 10 inches into Roberts’ brain.

Roberts, an unemployed carpenter, lost his right eye.

At a hospital news conference Tuesday, Roberts initially told reporters that he was walking through a park when he heard a bow fired, then felt the arrow hit. Later, he told them his friend was trying to knock the gallon can off his head as part of an initiation into a rafting and outdoor group called Mountain Men Anonymous.

Investigators said they had no doubt that the can story is true. Roberts, who is expected to be released from the hospital in a few days, said he was drinking with friends when the accident occurred.


“I feel really stupid,” Roberts said.