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Woman Survives Coat Hanger Hook-Into-Eye Accident

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Dec 3, 2007 9:30 pm US/Eastern

Woman Survives Coat Hanger Hook-Into-Eye Accident

NEW YORK (CBS) ― To look at Geraldine Rivero now, one could never know that just three weeks ago a large metal hook was stuck in her head, only to be removed during a miraculous emergency procedure that not only saved her sight, but her life as well.

"There was a lot of talk of losing my eye, being paralyzed, being dead, being brain damaged -- all kinds things going on," Rivero told CBS station WCBS-TV in New York City. "I think God made me forget what happened because I really don't remember."

It might be better that she can't recall the freak accident.

According to witnesses, Rivero was in a bathroom at a Thanksgiving party when she somehow slipped and fell into the door, where a coat hanger hook punctured her eye, pushing deep into her head.

"The coat rack perforated a side of her skull, went underneath her eye, pushed up into her skull basin," Dr. Henry Spinelli, the doctor who removed the hook, told WCBS-TV.

Firefighters had to actually remove the section of the hook that attached it to the door. Then Spinelli sawed off the rest of the base while Rivero was awake -- without pain medication -- and lying as still as she could.

"As soon as I would hit a rod of the device she would hit the ceiling in pain, screaming," he said.

But thanks to Spinelli's expertise, he was able to remove the hook through Rivero's mouth and she is now expected to make a full recovery.

And Rivero is quite thankful.

"Here I sit in this point in time and it's thanks to this wonderful, wonderful man," she said.

Rivero's mother said she intends to keep the metal hook that nearly took her daughter's life.

(© MMIX, CBS Broadcasting Inc. All Rights Reserved.)

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© MMIX, CBS Broadcasting Inc. All Rights Reserved.