A 4-year-old boy has survived an internal decapitation with the help of a police officer and his wife following an accident on an icy Idaho road.
Leah Woodward was with her husband, Joel, a police officer in Nampa, Idaho, when they saw the crash unfold.
The accident happened after a hailstorm when Brandy Gonzalez and her 4-year son, Killian, were returning home from a birthday party. Gonzalez lost control of her vehicle and skidded into an oncoming vehicle.
Gonzalez was pinned in the vehicle and her son was strapped to a booster seat, according to The Idaho Statesman.
Leah Woodward saw that Brandy Gonzalez was unable to move and her son was screaming in the back, but not moving.
"As a mom, that just goes right to your heart. My immediate instinct was: 'You have to help that little guy,'" Woodward told the Statesman.
Joel Woodward broke the back window using a trailer hitch and reached Killian. He instructed her to immobilize the head until help arrived.
“My first instinct would have been to cradle the little guy, but clearly that would have been the wrong choice,”
She held Killian's head steady for 30 minutes until emergency medics arrived and applied a collar before loading him into an ambulance.
Killian ruptured his spleen, broke multiple ribs and his arm. His skull was also separated from his spine, a condition known as clinical or internal decapitation.
According to KBOI, less than one percent survive the injury, but Killian is expected to make a full recovery. Also notable is that he will not undergo surgery
He is also walking and eating.
Read more about his recovery here.
A Go Fund Me page has been created for Gonzalez and Killian to help pay for medical expenses.
About the Author
