Toddler Gets Head Reattached to Spine After Internal Decapitation
Doctors in Australia were successfully able to reattach a toddler’s head after he was internally decapitated in a severe car accident a month before.
On September 15, Jackson Taylor’s mother Rylea was driving with Jackson and her 9-year-old sister Shayne when they were involved in an accident with another vehicle. Jackson’s mother was driving around 110 km/h (68 mph) around a bend in the highway when they collided with another car.
The impact of the crash caused his spine to detach from his head. As the cervical spine supports the full weight of your head, which is an average of 12 pounds for adults, it is a crucial part of the body that can cause serious issues if damaged.
“The second I pulled him out, I knew that his neck was broken,” said Rylea in an interview with Channel 7 News Melbourne.
After the accident, Jackson was airlifted to a nearby hospital. An X-ray confirmed that his head and neck had been completely dislocated from the spine. This injury, known as Atlanto-Occipital Dislocation, is very rare and fatal in many cases. Thankfully, Jackson was seen by Geoff Askin, who is known as the “Godfather” of spinal surgeries.
“A lot of children wouldn’t survive that injury in the first place,” says Askin, who claims that Jackson’s injury was the worst he’s seen of its kind. “And if they did and if they were resuscitated they may never move or breathe again.”
According to Medical Daily, the surgery to attach Jackson’s head back to his spine took around six hours. The procedure involved using a wire and a piece of Jackson’s rib to reattach his head to his spine. Several weeks after the procedure, Jackson seemed to be doing well and is expected to make a full recovery after eight weeks in a brace.
