For most people, being shot in the face with a .22 calibre rifle would be a death sentence.
But not for William Lawlis Pace, who was eight years old in 1917 when his older brother, Marvin, accidentally shot him during a game of ‘stick up’ at their family farm in Texas. Neither brother knew that the rifle was loaded.
The accident disfigured William’s face, in addition to causing total hearing loss in his right ear and near blindness in his right eye.
Despite these injuries, William lived for a further 94 years 175 days – a record for the longest time to live with a bullet in the head – before he passed away on 23 April 2012, aged 103.
William was awarded the Guinness World Records title in 2006, with X-rays confirming that the bullet remained lodged in the back of his head.
The bullet was never removed as doctors feared he wouldn’t survive the surgery, according to William’s son, Theron.
“During the entire time, he had no pain. He didn’t lose consciousness. They decided they couldn’t do anything for him because the bullet was so close to the brain,” Theron told Wichita Falls’ Times Record News in 2009.
William did not let his impairments define or hinder his life. He enjoyed playing baseball during his childhood, then went to college for a couple of years before his doctor recommended he drop out to save his “good eye”.
William followed in his father’s footsteps to become a farmer, and years later he worked as a cemetery caretaker.
He enjoyed 71 years of marriage to his wife, Onetia, with whom he travelled the world, visiting countries such as Tanzania, Egypt, Australia, and various others. The couple are survived by their two sons, as well as several grandchildren and great-grandchildren.
In 2010, William was asked by The Modesto Bee what had surprised him most in his 100-plus years of life. He replied: “Improvements in living. When I was born, there were no tractors, no milking machines."
Such technological advancements were instrumental in saving the eyesight of the original holder of this record, Satoru Fushiki (Japan).
Satoru’s left eye was accidentally hit by an air gun pellet in 1943 when he was 13 years old. The injury hospitalized him for a month and left his eye permanently blind.
Satoru was advised by his doctor to have the eye removed, as the pellet was made of lead and could cause poisoning, leading to blindness in his other eye.
However, Satoru was hesitant to go through with the procedure, so he went to another hospital to seek alternative treatment.
After meeting with a specialist in ophthalmology, Satoru was offered a new, revolutionary medication called penicillin.
“Fortunately, penicillin, which began to be used in 1948 around the world, saved me without taking off my eyeball,” Satoru said when applying for the record in 2001, at which point the bullet had been lodged in his head for 58 years.
Two years after Satoru was awarded the record, it was broken by a Bulgarian man named Kolyo Tanev Kolev, who accidentally shot himself behind his right ear with a pistol in July 1942, aged 17, in his home village of Dimitrevo. X-rays taken on 5 July 2003 showed the bullet lodged at the cranial base of his skull, 61 years later.
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