Toddler Survives Internal Decapitation, Takes First Steps Post-Surgery [Video]
Jaxon Taylor, the Australian toddler who survived internal decapitation, has taken his first steps since the life-saving surgery that repaired his broken neck.
As previously reported by Inquisitr, Jaxon Taylor was internally decapitated about three weeks ago when his mother’s car was struck head-on by another vehicle. The other vehicle was traveling at about 70 mph at the time, and Jaxon’s mother was protected by the car’s airbags.
Jaxon’s older sister endured abdominal injuries during the crash, but the toddler himself was hurt much worse than that.
According to the CBC, the force of the crash was enough to sever Jaxon’s neck internally, which is referred to as internal decapitation. While the toddler’s head remained attached to his body, his neck was broken.
“It is, it’s, it is a miracle,” Jaxon’s mother Rylea said. “The second I pulled him out I knew that he, I knew that his neck was broken.”
With this type of injury, the toddler faced permanent paralysis, or even death, due to potential damage to his spinal cord.
“It is probably a severe spinal injury with no serious trauma to blood vessels or the spinal cord itself,” Dr. Brett Belchetz, a physician from Toronto with emergency room experience, told the CBC. “Otherwise it would have been unsurvivable. Repairing such an injury is complex but routine. The miraculous element here is to have such a severe bony injury without associated other deadly vascular or spinal cord trauma.”
NBC News reports that Jaxon was airlifted to a hospital in Brisbane, where spinal surgeons spent six hours painstakingly reattaching the toddler’s head to his body to repair the internal decapitation.
The operation involved grafting the toddler’s severed vertebrae together with a piece of his rib, and he will have to wear a halo neck brace while he recovers.
In a touching video, the toddler can be seen taking his first steps after the life-saving surgery to repair his internal decapitation.
The toddler can be seen smiling and attempting to kick a balloon as he takes a few tentative steps with a little help. According to NBC News, the boy will have to learn to walk again following the successful surgery.
According to Consumer Reports, which recommends that children ride in rear-facing car seats until at least 23 months of age, this type of injury is often associated with infants, toddlers, and young children riding in front-facing car seats.
One study published in Injury Prevention indicated that children under 23 months old are 75 percent more likely to sustain injuries like Jaxon’s, or even die, when they ride in front-facing instead of rear-facing car seats.
According to Consumer Reports, in countries like Sweden, where children typically ride in rear-facing seats far beyond the 23-month mark, instances of child passenger injury and death are very low.
Severe injuries can still occur when a toddler rides in a rear-facing car seat, and Jaxon may have been in a rear-facing seat at the time of his injury. Austrialan law requires rear-facing seats for children younger than six months of age, but babies, toddlers, and children between the ages of six months and four years may ride in either rear- or front-facing car seats.
[Image credit: CBC video]
