It seems to always be the most unfortunate people who get branded ‘lucky’. If a man gets hit by a car and survives for example, he’ll be called lucky, or if a mountain biker loses control and hits a tree, ends up in hospital for a few weeks but eventually gets out okay, he’ll be branded with the moniker.

The thing is, if another mountain biker went down that route an hour later and got to the bottom without event, he wouldn’t be called lucky at all. He would’ve simply done what was expected of him. It seems then, that you have to either come near death or accidentally stumble upon a pot of gold to be called lucky these days.

Take this unidentified US cyclist for example, he’s been branded lucky after falling off his bike and being impaled by a tree branch which went two centimetres into his neck, because he’s now made a full recovery.

It goes without saying that this guy was lucky to survive, but we’ve got to admit, we wouldn’t call him lucky in general. In fact, we’re feeling pretty lucky just sat here thinking about how thankful we are that this hasn’t happened to us.

According to Sticky Bottle, the branch narrowly avoided the major artery and windpipe of the 40-year-old, who was riding in New Mexico at the time and is only said to have noticed something was wrong after standing up after the crash. Evidently, he didn’t realise on impact that there was a spiky tree branch stuck in his skin.

“Doctors told him that if he pulled the branch out himself, it would’ve done even more damage…”

Thankfully, the dude didn’t pull the branch out as soon as he realised it was there though, which let’s face it, would obviously be your gut instinct. Instead, he climbed back into his car – with his bike of course – and drove 20 miles to the hospital, where he was told that if he had pulled it out himself, it probably would’ve done even more damage to his neck.

The unlucky man – for we feel that despite his survival, that remains the more appropriate description – was then operated on before the wound was closed up, with a CT scan, top photograph, showing the branch which pierced his skin.

Moral of the story? Be careful when you’re riding your bike kids. You never know when you could be impaled by a giant branch.

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