Some miracles often challenge our understanding of medical science, but, every so often such stories emerge from the rubble. Here’s the story of a 10 year old boy who survived against an incredible odd.
Xavier Cunningham, a 10 year-old boy from the city of Missouri, was playing in a treehouse when a wasp attacked him. What happened with Xavier after he was attacked by the wasp is a scene straight out of a horror movie! In panic, the boy fell off the treehouse ladder and onto a rotisserie skewer that was placed on the ground by his friends.
The boy was immediately rushed to the hospital, where the doctors prepped for hours before surgically removing the skewer. Scans of the boy’s head showed that the skewer had pierced through his face and was passing just underneath the skull. What’s more, according to the director of Endovascular Neurology at the University of Kansas Health System, Dr. Koji Ebersole, the skewer had gone all the way to the back of his neck.
Although, it was a miracle that the skewer missed hitting any critical blood vessels, including the carotid and vertebral artery. According to Ebersole, “If this was a millimeter closer [to those vessels], it probably would have been an unsurvivable injury”.
In addition to this, the skewer also missed other critical structures including, major nerves, the brain and the brain stem. The skewer trajectory was “one in a million”. “How this thing could pass so deep through that part of the body and not hit something critical; I don’t know how the kid could be so lucky,” Ebersole said.
Luckily, with careful surgery, the doctors were able to remove the skewer successfully. And Xavier was back to his usual gaming escapades just a day after the surgery with only a bandaid on his face.