
                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: WEDNESDAY, May 12, 1993                   TAG: 9305120013
SECTION: SPORTS                    PAGE: B1   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: Associated Press
DATELINE: NEW BRUNSWICK, N.J.                                LENGTH: Short

JAVELIN IMPALES STUDENT'S NECK

A javelin tossed during warm-ups for a high school track and field meet pierced the neck of a 15-year-old team manager but missed vital organs by millimeters, his doctor said Tuesday.

"This thing had eyes for missing anything important," said Dr. Jeffrey Hammond, chief of trauma surgery at Robert Wood Johnson University Hospital. "As it was, he only suffered just some minor injuries to the muscle mass."

Jeremy Campbell of Metuchen was impaled by the 8-foot aluminum javelin Monday while preparing for a meet.

"I didn't see it at all," said Campbell, who is scheduled to be released from the hospital today. . "Everybody yelled `duck,' and the next thing I knew I got hit with a javelin. . . . I thought it hit my head and bounced off, but then I looked down and saw it."

The javelin entered the back of the teen-ager's neck, and nearly a foot protruded out the front, police said.

The only lasting effect of the puncture would be a scar from behind the teen's jawbone to halfway down his neck, Hammond said. About 6 feet of the javelin was cut off at the track and Campbell was taken by helicopter to the hospital, where the remainder was removed during surgery.

by CNB