KEY POINTS:
A teenager has miraculously survived being skewered through the neck by a tree branch in a car crash.
The five-pronged branch speared through 16-year-old Gareth Clark's neck, missing his spine by millimetres.
A passing nurse travelling with young children saved his life by using her baby's nappies to staunch the bleeding.
The accident happened last Tuesday after Gareth had sat his first NCEA exam.
His friend lost control of the car and it careered into a clump of trees.
Sergeant Graham McGurk said the driver of the car had been charged with dangerous driving causing injury and a sustained loss of traction relating to burnouts a short time earlier at an intersection on Tower Rd, on the outskirts of Matamata.
Mr McGurk said the 16-year-old driver told police he lost control while attempting to round the corner at 150km/h last Tuesday.
"The driver of the car has lost control on a corner, careered sideways over a walkway and hit a tree," he said.
"It hit so hard and fast that birds sitting in the tree didn't have time to react and died."
The driver was uninjured but the branch passed through the passenger-side window and entered Gareth's neck at an angle, bending around vital organs.
The branch was millimetres away from his vertebrae and spinal cord, oesophagus, larynx, carotid arteries, and one jugular vein.
The other internal jugular vein had been torn, although Gareth and doctors were unaware of the full extent of the injury.
Despite bleeding heavily, Gareth, a student at Matamata College, climbed out the driver's side of the car and staggered to the roadside.
There the trained nurse staunched the bleeding with two nappies and used a jumper as a tourniquet.
"She just ran up to me and put the nappies on my neck to absorb the blood and tied the jumper around my neck to hold them in place," Gareth said from his hospital bed yesterday.
When he first arrived at Waikato Hospital's emergency department about 7 that night, doctors also did not realise the extent of the injury.
He underwent surgery about midnight to clean the injuries, but as he woke he coughed, causing a blood clot in his jugular vein to burst.
For the first time in 10 years the hospital's leading ear, nose and throat surgeon, Andrew Currie, was called out from his home to carry out an emergency procedure.
"He lost two litres of blood within seconds," Dr Currie said.
Had Gareth coughed anywhere other than the operating table it was unlikely he would have survived.
Nearly the entire neck had to be opened up for surgery.
"The stick passed between his vertebrae and spinal column, and all the important structures at the front of the neck and back of the neck, including the larynx and oesophagus, without injuring them at all.
"Incredible, it's a miracle," Dr Currie said. "I can't get over it and I said to him, 'Someone's looking out for you'."
Sitting in bed yesterday with 32 staples holding his neck together, Gareth said he owed his life to the nurse who initially treated his wound.
"I would have definitely bled to death without her. And some people I know who were at the scene prayed for me."
He was keen to meet the woman and thank her personally.
The ordeal had taught him a sound lesson about respect for the road and cars, he said. "I've had the equivalent of five bullet holes through my neck that have curved around and missed just about everything."
Gareth saw some advantages in the scars around his neck.
"It's a nice way in to conversation if it all goes a bit dry with the chicks.
"I'll just show them my scar - that's pretty much been my thoughts for the past couple of days."
- Additional reporting NZPA
