Robert Annunziato was playing another amateur softball game when a demanding ball brought him head-on with a teammate.
The 40-year-old resident of Staten Island, New York, accidentally received a severe knee injury.
"He broke the left side of my skull, shattered every bone except my jaw on the left side," the man told the New York Post about the November 2019 fatal game that changed his life.
When he got there by ambulance, he was paralyzed on one side. Dr. Ronit Gilad, the neurosurgeon on duty that day, did not believe the extensive hematoma was due to an injury on the field.
"His injury was similar to a high-speed car accident," the doctor told the Post. The man was intubated and later underwent surgery. Gilad and her team removed the broken parts, reassembled them and secured them with 20 titanium nails and 8 plates.
"It was like a puzzle," she says, "it was about 10-15 pieces, some very small and some bigger. We had to reshape the skull. "
Married and father of two children Annunziato entered the intensive care unit and woke up from the artificial coma in early December.
Then they put him in a rehabilitation center. "I felt like I wanted to die," he recalls. He was finally discharged in mid-February and has now returned to his normal work and life. Dr. Gila spoke of a proper miracle