Mary Townsen is lucky to be alive. While weeding, she had a bizarre gardening incident, falling headfirst onto a knife.

Amazingly, the woman from Battle Ground, Oregon, was able to call for help and talk to neighbours; "She kept saying 'call my daughter, my daughter's a nurse, she can come over and just pull it out.'" said a neighbour.

The doctor who treated her said the knife just missed her brain stem and also just missed the main artery to her brain. "We took it out and nothing happened," he said.  "It's like, remember the Sword in the Stone?" said Dr Grewe.