Traumatic Brain Injury: Crash Victim Doing Well After Accident

Thirty-year-old Shannon Malloy's head became separated from her spine when she was thrown against her car's dashboard in a crash. However, despite Malloy's severe injuries, the nerves, muscles, and ligaments in her neck survived. Doctors described her injuries as an "internal decapitation;" Malloy's skull was knocked completely from the top of her spinal column.

Decapitated Woman Doing Well After Crash

In addition to her neck injury, Malloy suffered a fractured skull, bleeding in her brain, and damage to the nerves of her eyes. Her throat and air passages also were so severely damaged that she has to be fed through a tube into her stomach and only can speak in short bursts. Malloy says of the accident: "I remember the impact and then I had no control over my head. I wasn't focused so much on the pain. I just kept thinking, I have to stay alive." During the surgery to reattach her head, she said, "My skull slipped off my neck about five times. Every time they tried to screw this halo to my head, my skull would slip backwards or sideways."