A woman was left with what appeared to be a ‘second head’ after she had an accident when out running.
No, she didn’t run straight into something out of a science fiction film and end up with a grotesque second skull attached to her, but she did get a pretty horrific knock that left her with a massive bump.
Rachel Pepper even reckons that the bump – caused after she slipped on black ice and whacked her head whilst running – left her looking like ‘the sloth from Ice Age’.
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It all happened on March 14 when Rachel went out for a run not far from her home in Chicago, Illinois.
The 26-year-old says she ‘felt fine’ after slipping on the ice and whacking her head on the tarmac, but quickly noticed that bystanders were looking ‘shocked and scared’.
Whilst she initially thought they were ‘overreacting’, she soon realised that they were simply worried for her as she’d developed a huge lump right on her head.
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Of course, she went to the emergency room where she was given a CT scan that confirmed that nothing serious had happened to her.
Well, outside of the huge bump.
As you can see from the photos taken just five minutes after her slip, it got pretty extreme pretty fast.
Thankfully she’s OK and has even been able to have a laugh about it since then.
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She explained: "The spot was in the shade, which is why I didn't see the black ice. There wasn't any part of the trail that had any [visible] ice on it at all.
"[The fall] was very quick. The people around me seemed very shocked and scared, but I felt fine. I didn't feel dizzy, I was able to walk, so I thought that everyone around me was overreacting.
"But as soon as I took my phone out and saw my reflection, I realised how scary it looked. It looked like I grew a second head.”
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She continued: "I was confused, because I obviously felt the pressure in my head but I didn't feel as bad as the bump looks.
"I've never seen this happen to anyone before, and I was a bit worried that it was something in the brain.
"I immediately went to the emergency room to get a CT scan and make sure everything was okay, but it came back fine.
"All the comments [on TikTok] have been very funny to me, and I'm really happy that I can joke about it.
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"[I've been compared to] the sloth from Ice Age and Quasimodo."
Now, she’s got a black eye but is recovering at home after what she describes as the worst injury she’s had in her 13-year time as a runner.
She added: "I got a very nasty black eye, that I'm still recovering from now over two weeks later.
"Every day the bump is continuing to go down, but it's still not back to normal just yet.
"I was more angry that it happened. I'm training for a marathon right now, and I was really worried that I had hurt myself and wouldn't be able to run my marathon."
"But thankfully I'm back in my training and I'll be able to run my marathon in May.
"I'm still very confident about running. I will say I haven't been to that section of the trail since the accident, and I'm definitely hesitant to be running in that area of the trail.
"This is definitely the worst injury I've had whilst running. But it definitely won't deter me from running and being a part of the running community."
At least she’s OK and no serious harm was done – it does look like a really sore one, though.
Tom Wood