A 33-year-old man has reportedly hammered a nail deep into his skull while high on drugs because his brain felt “loose” and he has lived to tell the tale.

Natanael Garcia Polanco was taken to the Hospital Jose Maria Cabral y Baez in the city of Santiago de los Caballeros in the Dominican Republic with the nail embedded in his head.

He claimed to have suffered from a “loose brain” following the consumption of psychoactive drugs, apparently motivating him to hammer the nail into his skull.

The nail had pierced his skull and embedded itself in the man’s brain.

According to the news site Cronica, the nail was successfully removed by doctors during an operation without causing a significant injury.

Before the operation, Garcia Polanco told doctors that he had also inserted a thorn from an orange tree into his ear when he was unsatisfied with the results of the nail, according to neurosurgeon Dr Cristina Martinez via the hospital’s communications manager Yadira Martinez.

However, his family said it was not the first time that Garcia Polanco had harmed himself while on drugs.

The patient’s father Juan Tomas Garcia said that he “became like this, like crazy” five years ago when he started to take drugs and that he has allegedly tried to take his own life several times.

The father added that he is concerned for his son’s wellbeing and that of the people around him, and believes he needs to undergo psychiatric treatment.

Due to the patient’s reported history of self-harm, the hospital has started fortnightly psychiatric consultations with him, according to Cronica.