10-year-old survives after falling face first onto meat skewer

KANSAS CITY, Kan. – The family of a 10-year-old Kansas boy says it is nothing short of a miracle he is alive after a freak accident that left a meat skewer impaled all the way through his head.

Xavier Cunningham fell onto a meat skewer that was sticking straight up out of the ground. Thankfully, surgeons at Kansas University Hospital successfully removed it from the boy's face Sunday.

"He could've bled to death in that field, covered in yellow jackets," Xavier's dad Shannon Miller told WDAF.

Xavier's x-ray after getting a meat skewer stuck in his skull.

Xavier was climbing up to a tree house with friends when a group of yellow jackets began attacking them. Xavier fell 4 feet off the ladder and landed head first onto the skewer.

"He was more upset about the yellow jackets than he was about the metal piece sticking out of his face," Miller said.

The skewer was about a foot long and nearly went all the way through to the back of Xavier's head.

"It missed his brain. It missed his brain stem. It missed the nerves, everything that's valuable in your head. It missed everything," Xavier's dad said.

As a team of surgeons at KU Hospital worked on a plan to remove the skewer Sunday, Xavier's family turned to their faith in God.


The surgery took hours but ultimately was a success.

Xavier, all smiles at KU Hospital after surgeons removed a skewer from his skull.

"All I can remember is laughing and crying and cheering. Just the support of my friends and family, it was powerful," the Harrisonville dad said.

Miller said it was a test of his faith, but he never doubted God's plan.

"Only God could have directed things to happen in a way that would save him like this," he said. "It really was a miracle."

Xavier was back to his regular self on Monday, playing X-Box from his hospital bed and joking with family. He's expected to be released from the hospital in the coming days.
