May 15, 2001--
A two-year-old boy is at Primary Children's Medical Center after a car accident left him with a terrible and near fatal injury.
Surgeons say the boy was almost decapitated. There was no conventional medical treatment to repair a nearly broken neck.
So, the doctors turned to rocket scientists. And what happened next is miraculous.
Science Specialist Ed Yeates has this remarkable story.
Two-year-old Zachary McCallister is still in ICU at Primary Children's Medical Center. But he's alive - recovering from a bizarre injury which is usually fatal.
DOUG BROCKMEYER, M.D.: "HE HAD SUCH GROSS INSTABILITY OF HIS SKULL ON TOP OF HIS NECK THAT IF YOU HAD LEFT IT ALONE, EVENTUALLY IT WOULD HAVE JUST FALLEN OFF ON ITS OWN."
All the ligaments which hold the head to the neck were broken. Though the spinal cord stretched and bent - it did not break.
But surgeons had little time to hold everything together. Where to turn?
Doctors Doug Brockmeyer and Nathon Avery began measuring - what would it take to make the repair? They turned to rocket scientists at Utah's Thiokol Corporation - the engineers who design and build space machines.
NATHON AVERY, M.D., NEUROSURGEON FELLOW, PCMC: "THE GROUP AT THIOKOL BASICALLY DONATED AND TURNED THEIR COMPLETE R AND D LABORATORY OVER TO US TO GET THIS THING MADE."
Thiokol followed specs scratched out on paper by Brockmeyer and Avery. Working from noon until midnight, they came up with a perfect tailormade titanium implant.
It's attached with shorter screws at the back of the skull - and longer screws through the second vertabrae. In the middle, a bone graft which eventually will fuse everything together again.
CODY MCCALLISTER, ZACH'S FATHER: "THE MORE WE HEAR ABOUT IT THE MORE AMAZED WE ARE."
ED YEATES, SCIENCE SPECIALIST: "DOCTORS EXPECT A FULL RECOVERY, BUT BECAUSE OF THE FUSED NECK, ZACHARY WILL HAVE SOME LIMITATIONS. HE CAN STILL MOVE HIS NECK VERTICALLY LIKE THIS. BUT FROM SIDE TO SIDE - SOMEWHAT LIMITED MOTION."
AMBER MCCALLISTER, ZACH'S MOTHER: "WE HAVE SO MUCH GRATITUDE WE CAN'T EVEN EXPRESS IT - HOW THE COMMUNITY HAS PULLED TOGETHER FOR OUR SON THAT THEY DON'T EVEN KNOW. AND IT'S REALLY AMAZING."
Amber and Cody say they may plan a party where everybody, including Thiokol engineers, can come and see Zach running around again - head to neck like nothing ever happened.
In their search for the right kind of titanium for Zach's implant, Thiokol engineers almost had to pull a piece from a Minuteman Missile nose cone.
If that had happened, the doctors at Primary say Zach could have been nicknamed "Rocket Man."
