A man was riding his bike on rough trails when he took a fall. As he got up and evaluated his condition, he quickly realized something was very wrong.
Sticking out of the let side of his neck was a small tree limb.
Still thinking clearly, the rider left the wood in his neck, went back to his car, and drove himself 20 miles to the nearest hospital.
He was "lucky not to damage anything," Dr. Lev Deriy, told Live Science. "The neck contains a lot of very important, vital structures."
A CT scan at the University of New Mexico facility showed the small branch penetrated just over a half-inch into the man’s neck, narrowly missing key nerves and arteries.
Deriy praised the rider for his calm actions. "If you have something like that happen, it’s a good idea not to touch,” he explained. The doctor stressed it is more important to “get to a hospital as soon as possible.”
The rider was taken to surgery where the limb was removed without complications, and the patient was released with no complications.
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