We all know that parenting can be exhausting, but I admit I didn’t realize how dangerous that exhaustion could be.
That is, until I heard the story of a mom who broke her neck from yawning too hard. And it might sound a little hard to believe, maybe even a bit humorous, but the real story is that the mother came dangerously close to losing her life over the incident, and even suffered temporary paralysis and long-lasting injuries.
Yes, this is a real story, and yes, it really happened to mom of two Hayley Black, now 36. Black recently went viral on TikTok for sharing the story of how, way back in 2016, she broke her neck after yawning so hard.
While the original TikTok seems to have been deleted or made private, Black told her story to The Daily Mail, which detailed how exactly the terrifying incident happened.
Black had woken around 5 a.m. to make her newborn daughter a bottle when she "instinctively" yawned after seeing her baby yawn. Then, the pain hit.
Descriptions of the event say that after Black yawned (probably an involuntary reaction she couldn’t control after seeing her baby yawn!), she felt an “electric-like” sensation shooting through half of her body.
Black had been stretching while yawning — something many of us can relate to — but when the pressure of the yawn broke her neck, her arm literally became frozen in the air.
The terrified mom yelled for help from her husband, but he mistakenly thought she was overreacting. Instead of calling for an ambulance or medical help, he calmly walked to the fridge, got the baby a bottle, and grabbed his wife an ice pack.
It wasn’t until he got back to the room and found her still stuck in the same position, arm outstretched into the air, that he realized something might really be wrong.
He called an ambulance, and Black was rushed to the hospital.
The hospital, too, initially dismissed her symptoms, but after a night of excruciating pain, took a second look at her scans.
‘Nobody was listening to me, and I was like “something is seriously wrong,'” Black told The Daily Mail. “The nurses were getting frustrated with me and said ‘there’s nothing on the scans, you’re okay.'”
After more tests, a surgeon finally found that Black was completely paralyzed on the right side of her body. The medical team realized that the force of the yawn had forced her C6 and C7 vertebrae into her spine when she yawned, causing the paralysis.
Doctors called the injury a “freak incident.”
They were able to operate on Black, although the medical team initially told her she had a 50/50 chance of even surviving the surgery. She did survive, and the surgery was successful in repairing the damage.
Still, Black was left in a wheelchair, required years of rehabilitation, and says she and her family even experienced homelessness because of her inability to work and her husband being forced to care for her.
She’s now an advocate for anyone experiencing chronic health issues (she has ongoing pain and nerve issues from the accident and says it’s a ‘miracle’ she survived.
‘I’m not the only one who’s had these freak incidents happen. It’s so delicate in that area, people don’t realise,’ she said.
‘For anyone going through chronic pain or healing from an injury or event that despite society’s pressure, you get to heal in your own raw messy way, and you get to struggle because it’s hard and life-changing,” she told The Daily Mail. “‘You don’t have to be a hero or an inspiration—you get through each day how you can get through the best.”
Black added:
‘Finally, advocate for yourself and trust your instincts, you know when something is seriously wrong.’
