Mr Sangermano, 28, who is expected to make a full recovery, then said he felt no pain other than a strong headache.
‘This was a very strange case and the first of its kind I am aware of,’ said Prof Sid Berrone, who carried out a ‘tidy-up operation’ on Mr Sangermano before sending him home.
‘He was a very lucky man – he could have been easily killed.’
Mr Sangermano was hit by the stray bullet as revellers fired into the air on New Year’s Eve.
The .22-calibre round entered the right side of his head, passed behind his eye, hit a bone in his nose and finally lodged in his nostril, before being sneezed out in hospital.
The incident happened in Naples, Italy, where two other people were hit and one was killed in similar incidents.
Mr Sangermano’s girlfriend, of Turin, who asked not to be named, said: ‘We were walking when all of a sudden there were some bangs and he said he felt a pain to his head – he was covered in blood.’
