pencilA 20-month-old New Boston toddler is literally a walking miracle. After a pencil pierced her brain, the toddler has made a miraculous recovery.

Little Olivia Smith fell while coloring with the pencil that went through the side of her eye and four inches into her skull. You can imagine the terror her mother felt seeing her child with what undoubtedly looked like a deadly injury. It was probably one of the most horrifying things she has ever witnessed. Amazingly, these kinds of injuries are more common than we'd like to think.

When I was a little girl, I fell on a pen, and it punctured the roof of my mouth and went into my nasal cavity. It was far more bloody than life-threatening. Still, my mother didn't know that. Needless to say, she totally freaked out and rushed me to the hospital. Which is exactly what Olivia's mom did when her 3-year-old son informed her, "The pencil is in her head." She couldn't believe her eyes when just a bit of the pencil was left sticking out. The rest was actually lodged in her child's brain.

Amazingly, it did not hit the optic nerve or any major arteries. However, Olivia did suffer three strokes that left her unable to move on her right side. But in the hospital, her mother kept putting things in her right hand until the toddler began grasping and using it again. Two weeks after the accident, she is on the way to a full recovery. Miraculous, isn't it. But more than a cautionary tale on the dangers of pencils, this is also a reminder that kids are astoundingly stronger tougher and more resilient than we think.

Isn't Olivia's recovery amazing?


Image via orangeacid/Flickr