A teenager in India has miraculously survived being skewered
through the head by a metal pole in a bus crash.
The four foot long safety rail cracked through 18-year-old Manish
Rajpurohit's forehead and came out through the base of his skull,
missing his spine by millimetres.
The accident, which left the teenager pinned to his seat, happened
when a lorry crashed into the bus he was travelling in the Indian
state of Andrha Pradesh. He said: "It struck my head and embedded
me into the seat. "I was stuck there crying 'Help me! as loud as I
could."
Manish, a student, was forced to slide his head along the rod to
give enough room for rescuers to cut him free from the seat. He
then had to walk along the bus with the pole still sticking through
his head, before enduing an hour-long trip to hospital in a
three-wheeled rickshaw.
He finally arrived at the nearest hospital, only to be told that
doctors there could not help him.
He was then taken by ambulance to a private hospital in Bangalore,
three hours away, where surgeons were able to carefully remove the
rod.
Dr Sharan Patil said: "The first thing he said to me was 'Get this
bloody thing out of my head'. "It's remarkable. It missed every
vital part of his brain."
After surviving the initial injury in February this year, Manish
suffered a near-fatal brain infection, but has now fully
recovered.
