13-Year-Old Survives 6-Inch Screw Being Embedded In Skull

Doctors are saying that a millimeter made the difference between this 13-year-old living or dying.

Darius Foreman was building a tree house in Salisbury, Maryland when he fell and his head hit a board. That board had a 6-inch-long screw sticking out of it and that screw then got embedded in the kid's skull. The tip of the screw actually penetrated into the very outer layer of his brain.

“I think a millimeter made a difference in this kid whether he was going to live or die,” said Dr. Alan Cohen of Johns Hopkins Hospital.

The board that the screw was attached to was originally five-feet-long before firefighters sawed some of it off. After being flown to John Hopkins Hospital, surgeons were able to remove the board from the screw.

Attempting to unscrew it could have caused torrential hemorrhaging and would have been fatal. Instead a team of doctors screwed holes into the boy's skull on either side of the screw.

Using the holes, they were able to fit tools into his skull to help move the screw out. Darius now has titanium blocking the holes.

Read more at WJLA.