Brock Meister was a typical 22 year old guy who loved hanging out with family and friends,
spending days at the lake, and chicken wings.
But Brock’s story is anything but typical - in fact, the Plymouth, Indiana native shouldn’t
be alive after an insane internal decapitation.
Brock’s life was turned upside down in an instant when the car he was in lost control
on an icy road, crashed and rolled.
You couldn’t tell just by looking at him, but Brock’s head was no longer attached
to his body - Brock had been internally decapitated, an incredibly rare injury that is almost always
instantly fatal.
But Brock was awake, aware and even able to move!
The doctors were shocked.
How was he not paralysed?
How had he cheated death?
And how on earth would they keep him alive?
This wouldn’t be the first time that Brock faced health struggles.
When Brock was first born, he wasn’t breathing.
He had suffered 2 strokes and had bleeding on the brain, and he spent the first two weeks
of his life in the NICU at the very same hospital where he’d later be treated after the crash.
Unfortunately, that wasn’t the end of Brock’s childhood time in the hospital.
In 2012 when Brock was just a teenager he started having some trouble with his eyes.
He was finding it hard to focus on the blackboard and take notes in school, so his mother took
him to the doctor to get checked out.
That’s when she got the news that no parent ever wants to hear - her son had a tumor growing
in his brain.
An MRI revealed that Brock had a large mass on his pineal gland, and a biopsy confirmed
that it was malignant.
Brock developed moderate hydrocephalus, swelling of the brain.
He needed surgery to put in a shunt and relieve the pressure, but the doctors were dismayed
to realize that they wouldn’t be able to remove the tumor because of its delicate location
in the center of Brock’s brain.
Brock underwent 4 cycles of chemotherapy over 12 weeks, which shrunk the tumor to the size
of a grape, followed by proton radiation therapy, which finally killed the tumor.
Brock and his family were overjoyed - he had beaten the odds and survived brain cancer.
Brock’s mother says that throughout his whole ordeal, Brock never once complained,
and he never let cancer slow him down.
He rarely missed school even while going through treatment, and he always had a smile on his
face.
This attitude would go on to serve him well later in life.
After all Brock had been through already in his short life, his family was hopeful that
he’d recover from the accident, but they were understandably worried - was it really
possible that Brock could beat the odds and cheat death for a third time?
The day that changed Brock’s life forever started out like any other typical day.
Brock had just finished up dinner with some friends, and was already looking forward to
digging into the takeout container of leftover chicken wings when he got home as he climbed
into the passenger seat of his friend’s truck.
It was only a 10 minute drive to Brock’s grandparent’s home, and he and his friends
had driven these quiet, Indiana roads countless times.
Their familiarity with the Indiana roads was no match for mother nature, though.
The truck hit a patch of glare ice and spun out of control at 40 miles per hour.
The back of the truck swung out and into the ditch, causing the whole truck to flip over
onto the passenger side and roll over, before landing back on its wheels facing in the opposite
direction.
Another friend who had been driving ahead of them noticed that their headlights had
disappeared, so he turned around to check on them.
When he arrived at the truck, at first he thought everything was alright - the truck
was right-side up, after all.
That’s until he saw Brock’s face, covered in blood.
He tried opening Brock’s door, but it was stuck - in a rush of adrenaline, he ripped
the mangled door open as he frantically called 911.
As the 3 friends waited for the paramedics, the friend who had been driving described
what he saw during the accident.
As the truck rolled, Brock had been thrown sideways towards the passenger door.
His head smashed through the window, shattering it, and he was momentarily airborne.
Brock’s friend quickly grabbed him, saving him from flying out of the broken window.
“My neck!”
Brock was screaming as he kept trying to get out of the truck.
His friends put their hands on his chest to keep him in the seat and kept him still until
the paramedics arrived.
They didn’t know it at the time, but their quick thinking very likely saved Brock’s
life.
After they’d called 911, Brock’s friends also called his mother, and she arrived on
the scene just after the paramedics - that’s small towns for you.
She was terrified, but relieved to learn that Brock could feel and move his limbs, but he
was in a tremendous amount of pain - he complained that the back of his neck hurt, and that he
was cold.
Brock’s mom was able to talk to him before he was transported to the hospital, and she
was comforted when he asked her if she knew what had happened to his chicken wings - that
was the Brock she knew.
As Brock was transported to the hospital, his friends and family were worried, but they
were comforted by the fact that he was awake - that had to be a good sign.
Little did they know that Brock had sustained a terrible injury, one that’s almost always
fatal.
Brock’s head was no longer attached to his body.
When Brock arrived at the hospital, the seriousness of his injuries finally started to become
clear.
Initial imaging revealed that his skull was no longer attached to his spine - Brock had
been internally decapitated.
The staff and his family were shocked - the condition was so rare that Brock was just
the second ever patient to arrive at Memorial Hospital of South Bend with an internal decapitation,
and the injury was almost always fatal.
Brock had already defied the odds by surviving the initial accident and the ambulance ride
to the hospital, but he wasn’t in the clear yet.
The medical term for internal decapitation is atlanto-occipital dislocation.
The Atlas is the top vertebral bone in your spine, and the occipital bone is the lower
part of the back of your skull.
Actually, the term “decapitation” is a bit of a mis-nomer, since the head is still
technically attached to the body.
Traumatic hyperextension of the neck backwards can sever the ligaments in your neck that
attach to the skull, which leaves the head free to move around more than it should.
Any swift or sudden movements, especially sideways twisting, can exacerbate the injury
and even lead to death if the brain stem is damaged.
The injury can result in damage to the brain stem’s medulla oblongata, the part of your
brainstem that controls your heart and lungs, resulting in cardiopulmonary arrest - in plain
English, your lungs stop breathing and your heart stops beating.
There can also be damage to blood vessels, which can cause neurological defects.
Paralysis and loss of consciousness are common, but in a few rare cases - like Brock’s - the
only symptoms of an internal decapitation are stiffness and neck pain.
It’s impossible to tell if an internal decapitation has occurred without an MRI or CT scan, so
survival depends on quickly and carefully immobilizing the head and neck to prevent
any movements from causing further misalignment.
Brock’s neurosurgeon would later praise his first responders, saying: “As the surgeon,
I have the luxury of seeing all the images before I touch or move the patient.
First responders have no imaging to go off and have to act quickly...Somehow they were
able to get him out of the vehicle, onto a cart, into the ambulance, and ultimately into
the emergency room without losing his spinal alignment at all.
It was really perfect work.”
The medical team at Memorial Hospital found Brock’s case so shocking because 70% of
patients who suffer an atlanto-occipital dislocation die instantly or on the way to the hospital.
Sadly, internal decapitation is 3 times more common in kids than adults.
That’s because, compared to adults, kids’ heads are large and heavy for their body size,
and their ligaments are more lax.
Shortly after arriving at the hospital, Brock started having trouble breathing - a hematoma
in his neck was slowly enlarging, compressing his airway.
He desperately needed a breathing tube, but the normal head movements required to insert
one were out of the question in Brock’s condition.
Instead, medical staff did a tracheotomy to help him breathe.
Brock couldn’t speak with the tube at first, and he used hand signals and whiteboard to
communicate until a speaking valve was added.
As soon as he could speak again, in typical Brock fashion, he immediately asked for a
hamburger and fries.
Dr. Kashif Shaikh, the hospital’s neurosurgeon, was at home late in the evening when he got
the call about Brock.
When he saw the images and learned that Brock was still alive, he couldn’t believe it.
He knew he had to act quickly if he wanted to keep Brock alive and give him any chance
at recovery.
Memorial Hospital is a small, local hospital, and it was not the ideal place to handle such
a complex, serious injury.
Dr. Shaikh considered moving Brock to a bigger hospital to do the surgery, but he realized
that moving Brock in his condition would be risky, and possibly even fatal.
He called around to other hospitals and colleagues to gather the specialized equipment and tools
he would need for the complicated surgery, even having a medical equipment rep drive
through the night to deliver an essential tool.
At 3 a.m. on a Saturday Dr. Shaikh called in a favor from a friend so that he would
have another neurosurgeon on hand to assist him.
Finally, by noon the day after the crash.
Dr. Shaikh was ready to operate on Brock.
It took the two neurosurgeons an hour and a half just to position Brock for surgery.
One surgeon held his head and the other held his body as they used very slight movements
to slowly realign his spine, using live fluoroscopy and spinal cord monitoring to guide them.
After hours of painstakingly slow and steady work, they were able to reestablish a near
normal alignment, and finally the surgery could begin in earnest.
Dr. Shaikh made a long incision in the back of Brock’s neck to expose his spinal cord
and the back of his skull.
Next, he carefully attached a skull plate with screws above and below the fracture,
and connected them with a rod on each side of his spine.
Finally, after a very tense few hours, the surgery was a success.
Brock’s spine was secure, but his healing journey had really just begun.
It wasn’t until after the surgery was over that Dr. Shaikh had a moment to think, and
he realized that his miracle patient’s name was familiar.
After talking with Brock’s mother, Dr. Shaikh realized that he had been a resident working
under Brock’s doctor 6 years ago when he was undergoing his cancer treatment.
He couldn’t believe that his patient had cheated death not once, but twice, and that
he’d been a part of both recoveries.
Brock made it through surgery, but he wasn’t out of the woods yet.
He had intensive daily therapy first to be able to sit up again, and then, a few days
later, he was able to take his first tentative steps down the hospital hallways.
Brock spent a few more weeks in an inpatient rehab facility working to regain his mobility
before he was finally able to go home 2 months after his accident.
Even then, he wasn’t fully recovered.
He had to wear a neck brace for months and continues to do physical therapy twice a week.
Now check out the harrowing tale “How I Survived Chernobyl”, or this other video
that will definitely make your head spin - just make sure it stays attached!