According to her doctors, Shannon Malloy should have died after she was slammed into the dashboard of her car when it collided with another. The impact separated her skull from her spine without doing any damage to her skin and spinal cord. This rare condition, known as internal decapitation, is often fatal, but in this case, the injuries sustained were treatable due to the fact that her spinal cord remained attached to her brain.

However, reattaching her head to her neck was not easy. It took several attempts to insert the screw and her skull slipped off her neck several times.