Is Phineas Gage the toughest guy who ever lived?

Crazy fact (warning: graphic imagery follows): In the 1840s, Phineas Gage was working on a railroad line when a mistimed dynamite blast drove a 3-foot long, 1.25-inch wide, pointed steel rod, up from below and straight through his head behind his left eye and out the top of his skull, completely destroying his frontal lobe, landing 80 feet away.

The speed of the rod cauterized everything it contacted, so he was able to stand and walk. He sat up straight and alert in an ox-cart ride back to town. When the doctor arrived, he was alert and told him, “Doc, here is enough business for you.” He lived another 12 years, dying at 36 years old in 1860.