Chris Stewart was almost decapitated two years ago in a horrific racing crash, but now he's back behind the wheel.
14-year-old racing enthusiast Chris Stewart is getting into the driver’s seat once more – three years after a racing crash almost decapitated him.
It’s known as internal decapitation or the “hangman’s fracture”, where the skull detaches from the spinal column, leaving the head connected with nothing but skin and muscle. Unsurprisingly, in almost every case it’s fatal. After Chris’s 40 mph accident near Alton in Hampshire, England, ambulance and fire crews worked for 90 minutes to free him from the wreckage – and later, in hospital, doctors informed Chris’s parents John and Debbie that their son had a mere 10% chance of survival.
“The doctors had never seen this kind of injury because, they said, when it happens, people die instantly”, Mr. Stewart told BBC News.
Yet after a six-hour operation that connected his head to his body again using titanium rods and grafted bone, Chris confounded expectations. In just 3 weeks he was back on his feet and relearning to speak and eat, as the crash had detached his tongue. Astonishingly, he has completely avoided paralysis, and can now swim and exercise once more.
Cases like this are exceptionally rare – and survival seems to favor the very young. In 2007 an 11-year old Saskatoon boy had three vertebrae in his neck severed, yet after an operation similar to Chris’s, he recovered so quickly that he was released from the hospital in less than three weeks. Jordan Taylor of Hillsboro, Texas was just 9 years old in 2008 when a car crash internally decapitated him – yet his neurosurgeon would go on to give him a clean bill of health before the year was out.
Perhaps the most remarkable instance of survival is that of Shannon Malloy, whose head was separated from her body in a car crash on Jan. 25th, 2007 in Nebraska. She was 30 at the time – although her recovery has been long and painful, she survived her injuries (a fractured skull, bleeding in the brain and nerve-damage to her eyes, to name a few) in what has been described by doctors as a “medical miracle”.
For Chris Stewart, the appeal of four wheels is strong: although he’s banned from junior driving by his parents, he’s allowed to go-kart near his home – yet when interviewed, he admits he misses “getting trophies and stuff like that”. As a survivor of the hangman’s fracture, he can be assured of a place in the record books.
By Mike Sowden