'Miracle' as boy survives fall onto BBQ skewer which impaled his skull

It's being described as a "miracle". A 10-year-old boy in the United States has survived after falling from a tree and landing on a barbecue meat skewer that passed right through his head.

Surgeons in Kansas City successfully removed the object which somehow missed his vital organs.

Xavier Cunningham had been playing with friends last Saturday when suddenly his mother heard screaming. She found Xavier with the meat skewer sticking out of his head.

He had fallen from a treehouse after being attacked by wasps – right onto the lethal object which pierced his skull.

Xavier's father, Shannon Miller, said his son and a group of friends had discovered the barbecue skewer in the grass in a field behind the house in Harrisonville, Missouri, about 50 kilometres south of Kansas City.

"One of the boys stuck the forked end of the skewer into the ground to keep anyone from stepping on it.

"As the climbed up into the treehouse they disturbed a very large nest of yellow jackets. The swarm attacked and Xavier fell to the ground landing face first onto the barbecue skewer.

"He ran inside and left with my wife to go to the hospital. He was more concerned with the yellow jackets than the skewer," Miller told NBC News.