Doctor freezes man's skull, saves his life

[Still Waters]

A UTAH man had a 90 to 95 percent chance of dying after shattering his skull in more than 10 places until a neurosurgeon removed both sides of his head and froze it.

Kyle Johnson’s brain swelled uncontrollably after he fell off a longboard - essentially a surfboard on wheels - while travelling about 60km/h.

Dr Blake Welling of McKay-Dee Hospital in Utah decided to perform the risky surgery.

“We elected to take Kyle to surgery and remove each side of his head,” Dr Welling told FOXNews.com.

“It’s called a bilateral decompressive craniectomy. It’s something that neurosurgeons do as a last ditch effort.

“Most neurosurgeons do a decompressive craniectomy on one side of the head, where the trauma was.

“In this case, Kyle had such a global brain injury that we needed to take both sides of his head off, and you just leave a small strip of bone right down the middle.”

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[Eldorado]

Surgeons, doctors, nurses etc are great most of the time; other times they are awesome.

[:PsYKoTiC:BeHAvIoR:]

I hope that surgeon is paid extremely well to perform an operation as risky as that. I wouldn't have the guts to play with a person's life in my hands like that. Kudos.

[Brakzar Break]

Surgeons, doctors, nurses etc are great most of the time; other times they are awesome.

Or maybe a bit TOO awesome.

[GreyWeather]

Will he get the sides of his head back?

[Queen in the North]

I hope that surgeon is paid extremely well to perform an operation as risky as that. I wouldn't have the guts to play with a person's life in my hands like that. Kudos.

You have a point, but the guy had a 5 - 10% chance of survival, if you look at it another way, wouldn't you do everything in your power to save him? I'd say you can't make it worse.

[Mr Mojo Risin]

I hope that surgeon is paid extremely well to perform an operation as risky as that. I wouldn't have the guts to play with a person's life in my hands like that. Kudos.

The boy would have died if he had left it be, he had to do this. I say.....Well done

[Alchera]

Good thing he didn't lose his cool during the op, keeping professional cold detatchment like that, others would have melted under the pressure, guess he can chill-out now and earned some well earned rest. That's all I've got.