BOY of 12 stunned doctors by cheating death after his head was ripped from his neck in a car crash.

Chris Stewart, a junior racing driver, suffered “internal decapitation” – which kills most people – when his 1000cc Mini slammed into a crash barrier at 50mph after a tyre burst during a children’s race.

The impact of the crash wrenched his skull from the top of his spine.

 

Surgeons performed ground-breaking surgery – called occipital-cervical fusion – using metal plates and bone grafts from Chris’s hip to re-attach his head to the top vertebrae of his spine.

 

After six hours on the operating table and 19 days in intensive care – where he was kept in coma to stop him making any potentially fatal movements – Chris’s life was saved.

Article