Man survives internal decapitation after having skull separated from spinal cord

Surviving cancer is a major triumph in life, but the struggle doesn’t mean that life threatening situations won’t affect a person later. Road accidents may be damaging enough to kill a person, but some people often fight it out to beat the odds despite serious injuries.

22-year-old Brock Meister beat brain cancer when he was just 16 but faced another grave threat to his life after a car accident. The man’s skull separated from his spinal cord due to the impact causing internal decapitation.

Brock was being driven home by his cousin when the truck hit black ice and tipped over throwing him towards the door. Emergency responders carefully transported his body to the hospital without moving his head even a millimetre.

Doctors say this is why Brock is among one percent people who are able to walk after such injuries as he was like a bobble-head at that point. A study shows that people die in 70 percent cases like this one and 15 percent die after making it to he hospital.

After carefully getting him positioned in alignment for the surgery, doctors placed a skull plate and spinal screws below and above the fracture point. They then placed titanium rods on the sides to hold things together.

This isn’t the first time that Dr Shaikh saw Brock as he was a second-year resident at the hospital where the man had his tumour diagnosed back in 2012.