Teen motorcyclist almost beheaded as iPhone headphones cord sliced through his neck when he crashed into a fence
Bradley Willoughby, 16, was wearing the earphones inside his helmet, causing horrific injuries as the cable snagged on a fence
A TEENAGE motorcyclist was almost decapitated when he crashed his bike and his iPhone headphone cord sliced into his neck.
Bradley Willoughby, 16, was wearing the earphones inside his helmet - causing horrific injuries as the cable snagged on a fence and cut deep into his throat.
He had been practising jumps on his motorbike when he landed heavily, jamming the throttle which propelled him into a barbed wire fence.
His horrified mother Angie found him badly hurt with his left foot dangling from his smashed ankle and barbed wire lacerations all over his body - but the most gruesome injury was to his neck.
The copper wire inside the headphone cable had sliced into his neck muscle, stopping just short of his windpipe, and had to pulled from the wound by his dad.
RELATED STORIES
Angie told the Cairns Post: “Bradley had his iPhone in his pocket and had his earphones in and as he’s gone through the fence, the fence has grabbed the earphones and, because they were up inside his helmet, the barbed wire pulled the earphones straight across his throat.
“No one realises, but inside the headphone cord is fine copper wire which has cut through some of the muscle. He is very lucky he didn’t cut his trachea.
“None of us thought earphones could be so dangerous. His father pulled the earphones out from inside the cut in his throat.”
A rescue chopper flew Bradley from the family farm in Queensland, Australia, to hospital in Cairns.
He had stitches to the six-inch gash across his throat and surgery to fix his broken and dislocated ankle.
His mum added: “When my husband first saw him he thought it was a lot worse. He actually thought his foot was severed because of the angle it was on.
“Initially we thought he could die.
“We just held him and kept talking to him and calming him down.
“It just felt like what we had to do. It was after he was gone in the chopper it hit us how bad he could have been.”
We pay for your stories! Do you have a story for The Sun Online news team? Email us at tips@the-sun.co.uk or call 0207 782 4368