A 12-year-old boy has miraculously survived after running over a two-and-a-half inch nail while mowing the lawn, causing it to fling into the air and pierce his heart.

Abe Tullis, from Midway, Utah, was cutting grass outside his family’s home on June 4 – with dreams of setting up a lawn mowing business with friends – when he felt a ‘stinging bruise’ in his chest.

His father, David Tullis, heard the lawn mower stop and his son yell out.

Mr Tullis, who is the head of the trauma unit at Heber Valley Medical Center, said he didn’t think Abe was seriously injured at first – until he lifted up his shirt and saw the nail impaled in his chest.

Miracle: Abe Tullis holds a nail that entered his heart as he mowed the lawn at his home last month

‘There was just a little tiny hole,’ he told KSL. ‘I pulled [the shirt] up and I remember just seeing this curved end just sticking slightly out of the skin.

‘As I pulled the shirt up and watched him breathe, as his chest expanded the nail pulled in a little bit and it looked like it could be deep.’

His wife, Myndie, raced for the car as their son’s condition quickly worsened.

‘His color was changing, his eyes rolled back and he was having a real hard time breathing,’ she said, becoming emotional at the memory.

Abe added that he thought he might be dying: ‘Then I was like, “No, I’m going to make it”.’

Close call: The nail pierced the left ventricle of Abe’s heart, as shown on the X-ray. But the nail was plugging the hole that it went through and a clot formed around it, so he did not bleed out

Fears: Abe’s parents feared that they could lose their oldest son, pictured in hospital as he undergoes procedures

Miraculous: But during a four-hour surgery, doctors managed to pull the nail out without incident

At the hospital, doctors took an X-ray and discovered the nail had pierced the left ventricle of Abe’s heart and hit the interventricular septum – and Mr Tullis tried not to think about losing his son.

‘Just thinking about him possibly not being there was a pretty… pretty scary thing,’ he told the Deseret News.

He was flown the 12 minutes to Primary Children’s Medical Center in Salt Lake where surgeons carried out open heart surgery over four-and-a-half hours.

Throughout the procedure, his parents feared they might lose their eldest son.

But surgeons successfully stitched around the nail and then like a drawstring, they pulled the nail out and closed the hole in his heart, the family said. He has been left with a scar along his chest.

Relief: 12-year-old Abe, who is pictured with his father David, had hoped to start a lawn mowing business with friends but said he thinks he’ll stick to video games after the ordeal

Lucky escape: He has been left with a scar down his chest but is back to his usual active lifestyle

‘It was still plugging the hole that it went through, and he was able to form a clot around that, and I think that is what saved him,’ Mr Tullis said.

His parents said they feel they were blessed with good fortune that everything was aligned that Abe would survive; the doctors agreed that if the nail had been any shorter, he could have bled to death.

He’s not expected to have any lingering effects from the near-fatal accident and, seven weeks on, is enjoying playing soccer again – even competing in a soccer camp this week.

But the yard-work business has been scrapped and he’s not mowing the lawn anymore. The family, who said they don’t know where the nail came from, has hired landscapers.

‘Yeah I don’t really want to mow lawns,’ Abe said. ‘I’m going to play video games.’

Read more: Daily Mail