Toddler's neck no longer attached to his head

Toddler's neck no longer attached to his head

A 16-month-old boy in Australia is being called a medical marvel, after surviving surgery to re-attach the bones between his head and neck.

Jaxon Taylor was in the car with his nine-year-old sister, Shayne, with their mother at the wheel when a sedan smashed into their car on Sept 15, reported the Daily Mail.

Three teenage schoolboys, who were in their uniform, were traveling in the sedan.

The collision caused Jaxon to break both his first and second vertebra, which support the skull, and his collarbone, meaning that his neck was no longer attached to his spine.

The little boy was sedated medically for three days and had to go through months of treatment, including wearing a halo, to help the bones fuse back together correctly.

According to doctors, the surgery could have been fatal for someone so young.

His sister suffered from a fractured vertebrae and needed 3.5 hours of surgery to fix the damage caused internally.

She will have to be in a body frame for the next eight weeks so that she does not end up as a hunchback.

The police had informed Mrs Taylor later on that the laws for reckless driving and causing grievous bodily harm carry different punishments from state to state, and it is unlikely that the three boys will receive anything more than a suspended driving sentence and a fine.

Determined to not allow such devastation to befall anyone else, Mrs Taylor started a petition to have harsher punishments for reckless drivers in Australia.

"My children will have rehabilitation, physio appointments, scars and a life different to the one I hoped for them," she says in the petition site.

"I hoped they could play the sports they chose, they could jump on a trampoline, play together and run and be children - at no point will I have the joy of watching my children play without fearing that they will be hurt by their injuries caused to them by someone's stupidity."

It has since received more than 6,300 signatures.

Sources: Daily Mail, Change.org


This article was first published on Oct 1, 2015.
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