Accused Game Cheater Gets Knife Through Head

An argument between Counter-Strike players at a Chinese net cafe over suspected use of a "wallhack" cheat led to a 17-year-old boy being stabbed through the head with a foot-long knife - and living to tell the tale. (Graphic Photo)

Counter-Strike players in the Jilin province of China take cheating extremely seriously, as evidenced by the grievous wound suffered by one suspected cheater on March 16. The 17-year-old victim was suspected of using a hack that allowed him to see through walls, giving him an obvious benefit in the computerized game of hide and go kill each other.

A fight broke out outside the net cafe regarding the hack, and one assailant decided to do a little hacking of his own, stabbing large knife into the side of the cheater's head, the tip of the blade barely protruding from the other side.

The boy, miraculously still conscious, was rushed to a nearby hospital. After around 10 hours of surgery, the knife was successful removed. The boy survived, but is under observation in case bits of rust - did we mention the blade was rusty? - flaked off inside his brain.

So how does someone survive a foot-long knife through the skull? According to doctors, the blade missed major arteries, which kept him from hemorrhaging, and managed to somehow avoid affecting motor skills even though the blade passed through areas that handle those functions.

The net cafe where the incident occurred was popular with local youths because it didn't require ID, a fact I'm sure some will consider to be a factor in the incident, but I've always believed that being an asshole with a knife is an ageless thing.

I'm not sure how the law works in China regarding stabbings, but somewhere there's a Counter-Strike player just as relieved that the victim didn't die as the victim himself.

Physician Yan Shi-jun, who operated on the young man, said that the chances of surviving such a wound were one in ten thousand. Those are pretty steep odds.

I bet he cheated.