On the Big List Of Places Not To Impale Yourself With A Skewer, the face ranks near the top. Just ask 10-year-old Missouri lad Xavier Cunningham, who very, very narrowly avoided death after plunging face-first onto a 15 centimetre metal spike.
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The Kansas City Star reports Cunningham was playing with mates in a treehouse on Saturday when the group was accosted by some pissed-off wasps. The tyke then collapsed off the structure and fell straight onto the skewer, which the gang had conveniently left poking out of the ground.
The sharp implement pierced straight through his face and out the back of his head – but missed his eye, his brain, and his spinal cord. It hit his jugular vein, but also plugged it. Worth mentioning: the wasps were still attacking him at the time.
While still conscious, he was rushed to a local hospital, before being transferred to a larger University Of Kansas facility. It was there experts pulled the goddamn thing out of his head.
Neurosurgeon Dr Koji Ebersole said it was infinitesimally unlikely for Cunningham to have fallen on the skewer and for it not to have caused life-altering damage, adding it was “flabbergasting.”
Also flabbergasting: the footage of Dr Ebersole and the team presenting Cunningham with the skewer, after removing it from his noggin.
We mean, really:
Cunningham is expected to remain in hospital for the remainder of the week. Barring some potential damage to his vocal cords, he is predicted to make a near-full recovery.
