http://abcnews.go.com/Health/PainManagement/slideshow/photos-xray-oddities-medical-scans-2033647

Images of sharp objects that have been forced into somebody’s head always get people wincing sympathetically, certain that the person involved must be dead, because brain injuries are almost always fatal. The operative word here is almost, and what follows are incredible examples of people should, indeed, should be dead, but lived through their ordeals, somehow  surviving, against all the odds, and making full recoveries.

http://abcnews.go.com/Health/PainManagement/slideshow/photos-xray-oddities-medical-scans-2033647

Especially distressing when the victim is child, as young as 17 month-old Jessiah Jackson, some head injuries seem truly horrendous. Jessiah  fell into a pressure washer, when his chair tipped over, a large  metal hook within the machine  penetrating the skull, and lodged some way into the brain, close to  a large blood vessel. Despite the inherent danger of the surgical  procedure needing to be performed,  North Carolina Children’s Hospital surgeons removed the hook safely, and Jessiah is now fully recovered, a happy and healthy child.

http://abcnews.go.com/Health/PainManagement/slideshow/photos-xray-oddities-medical-scans-2033647

Another  17-month-old  toddler staged  a miraculous recovery after  falling face first into car keys, one piercing  his eyelid and penetrating his brain. Nicholas Holderman, of Kentucky, USA, appeared to have had  his eye had ruptured, at first, but later checks revealed noeye damage at all, and the resilience healthy child had, in just over two months, made a complete recovery, showing no visible signs of having been so horrifically injured.

http://abcnews.go.com/Health/PainManagement/slideshow/photos-xray-oddities-medical-scans-2033647

The young Emerson de Oliveira Abreu was out fishing in Rio de Janiero, using a compressed air powered fishing spear, he  aimed at a target fish, but his bad luck saw  the spear ricocheted back from a boulder and  spear him through head and brain, all 6in going into his skull, which required  needed five hours of very high-risk surgery  to remove  successfully, Emerson amazingly recovering completely and going back to his fishing as if nothing had happened. 

http://abcnews.go.com/Health/PainManagement/slideshow/photos-xray-oddities-medical-scans-2033647

One of the luckiest boys alive today, Liu Cheong came very close to death  when shot by a school friend whilst the pair were fooling about with bows and arrows, in Changchun, eastern China and 11-year-old Liu was horrified to feel an arrow pierce his eye socket, and travelling through his head, only stopped by the bony back of his skull, Liu only surviving because, by some miraculous freak of chance the arrow missed his brain completely, and he recovered completely.

http://abcnews.go.com/Health/PainManagement/slideshow/photos-xray-oddities-medical-scans-2033647

The image above, as shocking as it is, shows a 15-year-old boy’s skull, shortly  after a five inch knife stabbed him, as with two friends attempting to stop a mugging, he was set upon, the  knife stabbing one boy in the forehead, another boy  in the back and yet another in the shoulder. The  boy above only  survived because the knife was left sticking from his head, allowing doctors to operate in time. Had anyone tried to remove it before that, he would have died, yet ten months later he enrolled in college.

http://abcnews.go.com/Health/PainManagement/slideshow/photos-xray-oddities-medical-scans-2033647

As awful as these images would suggest the injuries might have been, the fact that these people recovered just goes to show how incerdibly resilient the human body can be in matters of survival.  There is bo doubt whatever that every one of these victimes turned out to be incredibly lucky in avoiding life threatening damage, but nature proves,through these amazing stories of survival, that she will always find a way to maintain life.

1. Potato Chips – Discovered: Saratoga Springs, New York

   

   Chef George Crum made the interesting discovery of potato chips after a customer complained to him about his potato fries being cut way too thick. Being a wise guy he sliced a potato paper thin and then fried it to a crisp. The diner loved it, thus creating the world’s very first potato chip.

2. Viagra – Discovered: Merthyr Tydfil, Wales

   

   Viagra was discovered by men who were being treated with an erectile dysfunction. It was first discovered in the town of Merthyr Tydfil with the trial medicines they thought could cure the dysfunction. It has since become well known as Viagra, and is used as a male enhancement.

3. Silly Putty – Discovered: New York

   

   Silly Putty was discovered in the 1940s by a general electric scientist named James Wright while he was trying to create a synthetic rubber to use for the war. He mixed boric acid and silicon oil and got Silly Putty. Since then it has become one of the world’s most popular toys. One favorite past time includes sticking it on a newspaper and pulling it off to reveal the imprint of the comic.

4. LSD – Discovered: Switzerland

   

   LSD was discovered by a Swiss chemist named Albert Hoffman. It was the world’s first acid hit. The year was 1943, and he had been working with a chemical called lysergic acid diethylamide. The initial reason for his research was related to childbirth. After the first try he attempted even a larger dose of it and made another discovery, the bad trip.

5. Microwave Ovens – Discovered: Massachusetts

   

   Microwave Ovens were discovered in 1946 when a magnetron melted a candy bar in Raytheon engineer Percy Spencer’s pocket. Microwave emitters powered the Allies radar in WWII.

6. Penicillin – Discovered: Scotland

   

   A Scottish scientist named Alexander Fleming was looking into a cure for the flu in 1928 when he noticed that a blue-green mold had infected one of his Petri dishes, and it had killed the staphylococcus bacteria that had been growing in it. The world’s most effective cure was actually discovered due to a contamination in the lab. What a unique coincidence!

7. X-Rays – Discovered: Germany

   

   X-rays were discovered in the 19th century by several scientists toying with penetrating rays that were emitted when electrons struck a metal target. It wasn’t fully workable until 1895 when a German scientist named Wilhelm Röntgen tried sticking different objects in front of the radiation and saw the bones on his hand projected onto the wall behind him.

8. Artificial Sweeteners – Discovered: Illinois; Maryland; Nebraska

   

   Artificial sweeteners were discovered in much the same way as penicillin. Three of them, Saccharin, Cyclamate, and Aspartame were all discovered in a one hundred year time period, and all by scientists who forgot to wash their hands after an experiment.

9. Brandy – Discovered: The Seven Seas

   

   Brandy was created by wine merchants during the medieval time period by boiling the water out of wine so that their cargo would stay fresh and take up less space when being shipped. After a while it was decided to skip the reconstitution stage altogether and brandy was accidentally created .

10. Vulcanized Rubber – Discovered: New York

    

    When rubber rots, it smells horrible unless it is vulcanized. The ancient Mesoamericans actually had their own variation of the process Charles Goodyear discovered in 1839. He accidentally dropped some rubber-sulfur compound onto a hot stove, creating the first vulcanized rubber.