When Mr. Gardner heard about a Darwin woman who made headlines for getting pulled over by police for a breath test wearing little but her undies, the 43-year-old had a big laugh - but wasn't expecting he would be next in line to make the paper for a mishap.
"I hit my ear on the boom of my truck and broke the headset of my phone," Mr. Gardner said.
"So I got some superglue and glued it back together - and that was ... when my boss rang."
The truck driver said he usually had the phone's headset in his ear most of the day.
"I guess I didn't think much of it when I put it back into my ear to talk to the boss.
I realized I had done something kind of stupid after having the headset in his ear for more than five minutes the adhesive had hardened - and Mr. Gardner found himself with a earpiece glued into his ear.
"Usually it's in my ear all day anyway - friends suggested to leave it in there and just plug my ear into the PowerPoint at night to charge it. But I did get a little worried and thought 'This is not good, this is really not good at all'."
Mr. Gardner said, “It crossed his mind to use his pocket knife to remove the unwanted gear from his ear.”
"I realized I didn't want to see myself going to a doctor to put my ear back on after I chopped it off.
The 43-year-old said he scraped the earpiece out of his ear with a spoon but several pieces of skin were still stuck to the headphones."Yes, it did hurt - but I guess I did hurt my pride much more than it did hurt my ear.
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