Internal Decapitation - People Who Have Survived Internal Decapitation

People Who Have Survived Internal Decapitation

• In April 2004, a 14-year-old Phoenix, Arizona, boy suffered internal decapitation after being struck by a car while on his bike. The boy recovered from his injuries, and was featured on the shows I Came Away Alive for the National Geographic Channel, as well as Untold Stories of the E.R. and Medical Incredible for the Discovery Health Channel.
• In January 2007, a Lincoln, Nebraska woman survived, as there was little nervous system damage involved.
• In July 2007, an 11-year-old boy in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, also survived with a hospital stay of only two and a half weeks.
• In October 2008, a 9-year-old Hillsboro, Texas, boy was internally decapitated in a car accident. Despite being given little chance for survival, he made an almost full recovery within 3 months of the incident and was able to return to school in the beginning of 2009.
• Jon Wilhite, a former baseball player and California State University, Fullerton, catcher, suffered the same injury in a vehicular collision on April 9, 2009.
• In August 2009, 18-year-old Amanda Kapp suffered internal decapitation, as well as numerous other injuries resulting from a serious car accident.
• On Christmas Eve, 2009, 6-year-old Meadow Rhynes from Providence Village, Texas, suffered an internal decapitation from a head on car accident. Rhynes also had traumatic brain injury, brain stem damage, and massive internal injuries. Neurosurgeons at Children's Medical Center (Dallas) performed an occipital-cervical fusion from the C0-C5 to fix the injury of the head coming off of the spine. Rhynes' other injuries were also taken care of and Rhynes was back to almost 100% baseline only a year after the accident occurred.
• On December 19, 2010, a 20-year-old woman, Amber McKinney, was in an accident with her boyfriend and survived the internal decapitation. Along with internal decapitation, she sustained a brain injury and a broken femur. She recovered in two months.
• On July 31, 2011, United States Marine Corps Gunnery Sergeant David Smith was rear-ended by a drunk driver while sitting on his motorcycle at a stop light in Rancho Bernardo, San Diego, California. Smith went on to survive the injury, having the C2, C3 and C4 cervical vertebrae fused by surgery through the back of his neck, and then all three fused to the base of his skull with titanium hardware nine days later. Smith was walking two days after surgery and in physical therapy within two weeks and was released from hospital on August 23, 2011.
• In September 2011, then-22-year-old Rachel Bailey was in a car accident in in Phoenix, Arizona. Bailey was rescued by firefighters and spent a month in John C. Lincoln Hospital's Intensive Care Unit. She is now able walk and talk again, but does not remember the two days prior to the accident or month and a half following the crash.