A nine-year-old boy in Minnesota has survived an accidental fall that sent an arrow through his brain and nearly out of the back of his skull, in what doctors have described as a medical miracle.
Gus Deterding was helping his father pack for a hunting trip in March when he slipped on the icy driveway of their home in Alexandria, about 130 miles north-west of Minneapolis. He fell face-first on a youth bow and arrow he was carrying, which penetrated his head just to the right of his nose.
Gus pulled the arrow out himself and went inside to his mother, Abby, who was vacuuming. He was panicked but not bleeding heavily. An emergency room doctor had him flown by helicopter to Children's Minnesota hospital in Minneapolis, where he was observed and released. However, after vomiting at home, scans revealed the arrow had pierced the middle of his brain and come within less than an inch of exiting his skull.
Dr Ken Maslonka, medical director of the hospital's paediatric intensive care unit, said he had never seen anything like it in his 28-year career. He created a model of the arrow's trajectory and said he would have assumed the injury was fatal without knowing the outcome. Gus showed no ill effects months later, which Maslonka attributed to 'fortune' or 'God controlling the direction of that arrow'.
His parents said his survival was miraculous rather than lucky. 'It's a miracle,' Abby Deterding told local news station KARE. 'We're just thankful, so grateful.'
