Meerut, July 24 (IANS) In a medical marvel, surgeons at a Meerut hospital successfully removed an eight-cm-long nail from the skull of a youth that he had himself rammed into his head in order to end his life.

Shashank, 24, had gone into depression after a fire in Victoria Park in 2005 killed more than 50 people. After seeing the charred bodies he had expressed a desire to die too.

'Shashank had earlier attempted suicide by consuming poison,' said his father Dilip Chand Jaiswal, a trader and a resident of old Mohanpuri in Meerut town.

Late Tuesday night, Shashank rammed the rusted nail into his skull using a wooden board lying in the bathroom. He retired to bed assuming that he would soon join those who died in the Victoria Park fire, his father said.

'On Wednesday morning we saw the huge nail sticking out of his skull when he came down to the ground floor. The family members were shocked and rushed him to the Lala Lajpat Rai Medical College, where doctors operated upon him and took out the nail,' the father added.

Pradeep Bharti, head of the neurosurgery department at the hospital, said: 'The nail damaged certain parts of the youth's brain. The operation was performed successfully. A team of eight medical and paramedical professionals took two and a half hours to take out the nail. The youth is fully conscious and well, but we are keeping him under observation.'

Sona Kaushal Bharti, a psychiatrist, said Shashank was under treatment of psychologists but was not taken to counsellors after he went into depression in 2005.