Doctors reattached my head after I was 'decapitated' in a car accident

An American man has revealed how a horrific car accident left him 'internally decapitated'.

The 50-year-old unnamed farmer reportedly swerved to avoid a pothole when he lost control of his pickup truck and slammed into a row of trees, flipping the vehicle onto its side.

The brutal impact tore the ligaments that connect the skull to the spine — a rare and often fatal condition known as an atlanto-occipital dislocation, or 'internal decapitation'.

This injury allows the skull to shift dangerously atop the spinal column without breaking the skin or severing the spinal cord.

'I just remember my neck hurting like hell,' he said. Remarkably, he stayed conscious throughout the ordeal.

Emergency crews rushed him to the hospital, where doctors feared catastrophic internal bleeding or a loss of oxygen to the brain, either of which could result in permanent brain damage or death.

In addition to the ligament damage, the December 2020 crash left him with fractures at the base of the skull, compounding the severity of his injuries.

Surgeons acted fast, performing delicate stabilization surgery to reconnect and secure the skull-spine junction. He was later fitted with a rigid cervical brace, which he wore for 18 weeks to allow the area to heal without movement.

Against staggering odds, he survived — and is now sharing his story as a warning and a miracle in modern trauma medicine.

In the crash, the man also fractured his first cervical vertebra, known as C1 or the atlas — the topmost bone in the spinal column that supports the skull.

He also tore both the apical and alar ligaments, critical structures that connect the skull to the cervical spine and help stabilize the head during movement.

Revealing his story on Reddit, the man described himself as 'very lucky to still be alive.'

'Only a few people survive, and those that do are often irretrievably f***** up,' he wrote. 'I made a (mostly) full recovery.'

Atlanto-occipital dislocation is fatal in around 50 percent of cases, with survivors often facing serious neurological damage.

These can range from paralysis and chronic pain to difficulty speaking, swallowing, or breathing without assistance.

But after 18 weeks in a rigid cervical brace, he says he's now mostly recovered, with no neurological problems.

But the trauma wasn't without lasting effects. He says his neck mobility has been reduced by about 50 percent, leaving him unable to look up or turn his head fully side to side.

He also experiences muscle cramps on the left side of his face and throat, and struggles to swallow pills and certain foods.

To stabilize his injuries, doctors likely performed a posterior occipito-cervical fusion — a complex surgery that permanently connects the skull to the upper cervical vertebrae using rods, screws, and bone grafts.

This procedure prevents any further movement that could damage the spinal cord or brainstem.

He was wearing a seatbelt at the time of the crash — which may have saved his life by keeping his body in position during the high-impact collision.

His hospital bill totaled $400,000, but thanks to insurance, he was responsible for $50,000 out-of-pocket — a steep price, but one he acknowledges could have been far higher in more ways than one.

He is thought to have suffered from a type 1 injury, where the skull is displaced forward on the neck.

There are two other types: Type 2, where the skull is displaced upward, and type 3, where the skull is displaced back from the neck.

'Internal decapitation' is considered to be a medical emergency because it can damage the spinal cord and lower brainstem.

And it can break or block major arteries supplying the brain, depriving the organ of vital oxygen and nutrients - and causing brain cells to start to die within four to five minutes.

Doctors normally treat the condition with surgery, and diagnose it via observations of patients and brain scans.

It can also be difficult to diagnose. Last week, DailyMail reported on the case of Megan King who suffered from the injury at 16 after falling during a soccer game but did not have it diagnosed for another ten years.

The injury is rare and commonly linked to car accidents. It is more common among children because their heads are larger relative to their body size.

In the accident, the unnamed man from Reddit also got his left foot stuck between the brake pedal and the vehicle floor.

And doctors found he had shattered his left tibia (the main bone in the lower half of the leg), broken four ribs, and sprained his wrist and ankle.

He also had surgery for these injuries, and was in the hospital for ten weeks while he recovered.

He was then in physical therapy for five weeks to restore strength to his left leg after it was left looking 'like a stick', and then returned to farm work.

He says he is also now unable to run and has regular pain from his left knee. His golf game has also got worse.

But that hasn't stopped him living life to the full: With the man jumping on bicycles and a motorbike.

He covered 2,000 kilometeres on a bicycle in 2021, he said, despite advice from his doctors not to use one because of his weaker neck.