A six-year-old girl cheated death by millimetres after she fell off her bike – and the handle bar impaled her NECK.
Brooke Hulbert took a tumble while playing with friends and the brake lever penetrated her neck, narrowly missing her main artery.
She was quickly airlifted to hospital where doctors said the injury could have proved fatal if it had severed the blood vessel.
Mum Kerry O’Shea with her daughter Brooke Hulbert, 6, who impaled her neck on her bike brake lever
Despite her brush with death, the youngster is already eager to get back in the saddle and begin riding again.
Brooke, of Trowbridge, Wilts., said: “I want to go on my bike again, because I love riding it. I go on it every day and I don’t like staying inside.”
Two air ambulances, two rapid response cars and a road ambulance attended the scene and Brooke was flown to Bristol Children’s Hospital.
When paramedics examined the injury they could see her main artery pumping and her jawbone was visible.
Brooke added: “It hurt a bit, but I felt okay and the ambulance people made me laugh, so I wasn’t scared.”
Mum, Kerry O’Shea, 27, said: “She wasn’t crying and there was no blood, so I don’t think she realised how bad it was.
“It is good she wants to go on her bike again, because I don’t want her to be scared, but she needs to rest first, which is hard because she is so active.”
Doctors stitched the hole from the inside, using dissolvable stitches, and used butterfly stitches to close the outside of the wound.
It is unclear if Brooke will have a lasting scar.