Woman survives being impaled in neck by tree

An woman is recovering after she was impaled in the neck by the branch of a tree while driving with her husband.

Michelle Childers and her husband, Daniel, were taking a recreational drive on a rural road in Idaho on Sept 5 when a spruce tree crashed through the passenger side window of the vehicle.



The twenty two-year-old said she then felt a "strange" pressure on her neck and shoulder. "I asked (my husband) 'what where is it?' "she said.

Her husband, twenty two-year-old Daniel Childers, told her that the tree limb had impaled her. The branch was more than an inch in diameter and 18 inches long. However, Mrs Childers said she felt no pain.



The couple drove to the Lochsa Lodge near the Idaho-Montana border to call for help and was flown by helicopter to St. Patrick Hospital in Missoula, Mont. Childers said the 13-inch tree limb was removed from her neck during a six-hour surgery.

Doctors discovered that the branch had somehow missed her jugular vein and her windpipe. The branch penetrated its way to the back of her left shoulder.