Miraculous survival of US boy Xavier Cunningham, 10, impaled through skull in freak treehouse accident
Xavier was attacked by a swarm of wasps in his treehouse, fell out and landed face first on an upright metal skewer
A 10-year-old American boy was making a remarkable recovery Wednesday after a meat skewer impaled his skull but missed his brain, in what medics called a “one in a million” accident.
Had Xavier Cunningham landed fractions of a centimetre to either side after falling from a treehouse ladder onto the sharp metal spit fixed upright beneath, he may have been severely injured or killed.
“This thing had spared the eye, spared the brain, spared the spinal cord,” neurosurgeon Koji Ebersole, head of the local university health authority, told The Kansas City Star.
I have not seen anything passed to that depth in a situation that was survivable, let alone one where we think the recovery will be near complete if not complete
“It was one in a million for it to pass five or six inches (13-15cm) through the front of the face to the back and not have hit these things,” he added.