Butcher's hook accident injures woman

A young freezing worker is lucky to be alive after a butcher's hook went into her ear canal and out of her neck.

The accident in Marton, which happened last week, has left the 19-year-old battling partial paralysis in her face.

Wellington plastic surgeon Charles Davis said the hook was about a centimetre away from piercing the woman's brain and went close to her carotid artery.

"The hook had penetrated five centimetres through her ear canal and gone between cartilage and bone, pulling very hard on the facial nerve which supplies all the motor function to your face, to raise your eyebrow, close your eyelid and smile," he told The Dominion Post.

While some of the woman's facial muscles were not working properly, Dr Davis said he expected the movement would gradually return, but wasn't sure as to what extent.

The facial nerve was badly bruised and swollen and had been almost ripped in half.

The woman said the accident appeared to have been the result of a lapse in concentration where she got her head between the hook and a shield covering a piece of machinery.

- NZPA