- We may not have nine lives like cats, but some people clearly have two.
As far as medical science has come, there are some injuries that we just have to accept that we won’t survive. Like losing your head — there’s no bouncing back from that.
Or so you’d think, but sometimes extremely lucky people manage to survive things they really shouldn’t. Here are six accidents that by all logic should’ve been fatal, but weren’t.
A disclaimer, though, there’ll be graphic descriptions of bodily harm coming up. Just in case you’re sensitive to that stuff.
1) Forced Through a Tiny Hole
In December 2008, welder Matthew Lowe from Barnsley, England, had an awful day at worked. His overalls got caught in a conveyor transporting metal parts, and the machine yanked him along for a horrifying ride.
As part of the production process, the parts go through a section that’s no wider than a CD case. Luckily, Lowe’s head didn’t get pulled in — but the rest of his body did.
The machine ripped off his skin, crushed his back, pelvis, and ribs, and burst his stomach and bowels. One it spat Lowe out, he resembled more a chunk of ground meat attached to a screaming head than a human being.
Unsurprisingly, authorities told his partner to not expect him to survive. Surprisingly, six operations and many, many metal pins later, Lowe is still alive and working for the same company.
Apart from the masses of metal supporting his bones, the only long-term effect Lowe reportedly has to live with is a weakened right arm.
2) Shooting 12 Nails into His Own Head
In 2006, a 33-year-old man from Oregon, who suffered from severe depression and struggled with methamphetamine addiction, made the unfortunate decision to end it all. We assume he didn’t have a proper firearm, because he picked up a nail gun and put a nail into his skull.
We’ll also assume that he was surprised to find himself still alive. So, he repeated his suicide attempt, again, and again, and again, until there were 12 nails inside his brain.
Still alive, the man finally went to a hospital. The doctors used needle-nosed pliers and a drill to pull the nails out, and the man miraculously survived.
He first claimed he’d had a work accident, but later admitted he’d tried ending his own life. Unfortunately, the last update we can find about him is that he left a psychiatric ward against his doctors’ wishes.
3) Getting His Head Impaled with an Iron Pole
In 1848, Phineas Gage was working at a railway construction. His crew detonated some rocks, and the explosion sent a three-foot-long, one-and-a-quarter-inch-wide pole through his skull and brain.
The accident instantly blinded Gage in his left eye, but the man remained conscious. According to stories, he was well enough to quip with his doctor, telling him that he’d be “business enough” for the day.
Gage survived the accident through some miracle of 19th-century medicine. However, his personality was never the same — Gage became irritable, unable to follow plans, and would “utter the grossest profanities.”
Still, he lived for 12 more years until finally passing away from a series of seizures in 1860.
4) Cut in Half
Truman Duncan, from Cleburne, Texas, was working as a railroad switchman in June 2006 when he fell off of a moving train. He attempted to run off the tracks but didn’t make it — he fell and got caught under the wheels.
The train essentially cut his body in half, tearing off Duncan’s legs, pelvis, and right kidney. Despite his injuries, he remained conscious and even called 911 himself.
While he waited 45 minutes for help to arrive, he also called his family and told them what had happened. When first responders arrived, Duncan was unresponsive and suffered from massive blood loss.
But, after three weeks in a coma and 23 surgeries, Duncan pulled through. Now wheelchair-bound, he returned to an office job at the same railyard.
5) Blown Full of Air
Steven McCormack, a truck driver from New Zealand, was standing on the rigging between his truck and the trailer when he slipped and fell. He landed on the truck’s air brakes, braking the air connection and impaling his buttock on it.
The truck’s massive air tank emptied half of its contents into McCormack’s body as he screamed in agony. The man recounted that he could feel fat separate from his muscles, his skin tear, and his lungs fill with fluid as he swelled to nearly twice his body size.
Finally, his coworkers managed to disconnect him from the air hose. The emergency responders managed to drain excess fluid from McCormack’s body, but there was only one way to get the air out.
According to McCormack, it took him three days to return to his normal size while he burped and farted all the air out. That’d probably be funny if it wasn’t so utterly horrifying.
6) Decapitated Internally
In January 2007, Shannon Malloy crashed her car. In the accident, she got decapitated.
No, her head didn’t go flying, but internally the result was the same. Every ligament and tendon connecting her skull to her spinal cord tore and broke, leaving Malloy’s head connected to her body only with skin and muscle.
Against all odds, Malloy didn’t die, and the doctors even managed to reattach her skull to her spine. Still, it took them five attempts to get it right — Malloy said she felt it every time her skull slipped off.
Even more incredible is that Malloy avoided getting paralyzed. She has some speech and sight issues, but otherwise she could return to normal life.