A photo provided by a Tay Ninh hospital shows Nguyen Tuan Duong, 36, being hospitalized with a pitchfork protruding from his forehead on September 9, 2014.

Doctors at a hospital in the southern province of Tay Ninh successfully removed a 40-centimeter pitchfork from a citizen patrolman's forehead and brain in the wee hours of Tuesday morning.

Nguyen Tuan Duong, 36, was still in full possession of his faculties while being rushed to the provincial hospital at 3:20am with a two-pronged pitchfork sticking out of his forehead.

X-ray images showed that the pitchfork had penetrated five centimeters into his brain.

A one-hour operation successfully extracted the tines from his head and Duong was sent to Ho Chi Minh City’s Cho Ray Hospital for further treatment.

Police said that Duong, a member of a Tan Bien District’s citizen patrol group, was on duty when he and his colleagues noticed two suspicious men riding along a local road at around 3 a.m.

The group asked the pair to stop, but the two men sped up and attempted to flee the scene.

As the patrolmen closed in, the suspect riding pillion suddenly fired the pitchfork at his pursuers using an improvised gun.

The pitchfork-like missile landed in Duong’s forehead.

After the operation, Duong told Thanh Nien News he thought the fork just missed him.

“I was wearing a helmet, so I firstly thought that the fork only hit the helmet, not my skin,” he said.

According to authorities, such weapons are usually used by the dog thieves. The pitchfork is usually used to stun the animal to make it faint before being caught.