14 DAY TRIAL // A 40-year-old man in New Mexico, US, nearly lost his life when, while mountain-biking in a local forested area, he had the misfortune to fall off his bicycle and came tumbling down over a tree.
A branch impaled him through the neck, reaching a depth of about 1.6 centimeters (0.6 inches). As shown in the CT scan below, it speared right through the soft tissues in the patient's neck.
The reason the man didn't die on the spot but instead survived long enough to reach a local hospital where surgeons could treat his injury was that the branch did not hit any major blood vessels or his airways.
The cyclist was treated by medical expert Lev Deriy and fellow specialists at the University of New Mexico. The intervention was quite tricky, but the man made it through and was eventually discharged.
The doctors who handled this case say the patient did not develop any serious complications following the surgery to remove the tree branch from his neck. Au contraire, he made a full recovery.
The patient drove himself to the hospital
It is unclear whether the man was alone or accompanied by friends or family at the time when he fell off his bicycle and got impaled on the tree branch.
The one bit of information that has been made public by his doctors, however, is that, by the looks of it, he drove himself to the hospital following the mishap. Yes, the branch remained lodged in his neck the entire ride.
As weird as this might sound, doctors say that, had he removed the branch, the 40-year-old might have nicked a blood vessel and bled to death. He could have also injured his airways.
Otherwise put, leaving the branch in his neck was a most inspired decision. In fact, experts urge that people who suffer similar injuries follow this man's lead and don't try to fix the problem themselves.
“If you have something like that happen, it’s a good idea not to touch the foreign body,” said specialist Lev Deriy in an interview, as cited by Live Science. Thus, the best thing to do is to call the emergency line or go to the nearest hospital.
