A mother of three woke from brain surgery to find quarter of her head missing – and it was being stored in her stomach.

Beauty queen Jamie Hilton had a life-saving operation following a fall

If there were no pictures, you wouldn’t believe Jamie Hilton’s extraordinary story. She spent 42 days after life-saving brain surgery with a quarter of her skull ‘living’ in her stomach.

And now the former American beauty queen is back at home after surgeons successfully stapled the bone to her head.

‘My heart feels like it could explode with GRATITUDE,’ she wrote on her blog.


‘My cup is running over with joy and happiness. Is everything in my life perfect? No. But today I AM ALIVE!’



The 36-year-old’s brush with death came after she stumbled and hit her head on a fishing trip with her husband, Nick, to Hell’s Canyon in Idaho in June.

Surgeons removed part of Mrs Hilton’s skull and placed it in her stomach to keep it functioning

She was taken unconscious to hospital in Boise where doctors found her brain had swollen.

They decided to remove a quarter of her skull to ease the swelling and put it inside her stomach to keep it sterile and nourished.

When the mother of three, a former Mrs Idaho, woke from the operation she found a lump in her stomach and a large portion of her head missing. Mrs Hilton posted a photo of the skull in her abdomen on her blog entitled ‘Miracles… believe in them’ as well as a photo showing a scar running the length of her head.

Part of the skull was removed in order to relieve pressure on her brain following the accident

She wrote about the moment her skull was replaced last month. ‘Surgery went as well as expected! My skull is back in my head… really weird to say;),’ she said.

‘For now the only possible problems are infection or my body rejecting the skull being back in my head.’

Since recovering she has returned to work in the family taxi business as she attempts to clear a six-figure medical bill.