A woman on TikTok has revealed that she actually broke her neck with her own two hands after trying to crack it. In a video that’s garnered nearly 10 million views and thousands of comments, Lily (@lilyzacharias) says she had to spend the first two weeks of college in a neck brace due to the freak accident.
In the video, Lily recalls the experience, which thankfully is now in the distant past — it happened back in 2013. “I’m gonna crack my neck, everything will be fine!!” she captions the clip while holding her neck with both hands. The next shot is herself 10 years ago in a neck brace.
Viewers were both horrified and fascinated by the video and wanted the full story, and Lily obliged in a follow-up clip. She revealed that her mom always warned her that she was going to injure herself, and that’s exactly what happened.
@lilyzacharias Interrupting the layoff content with this PSA from 2013 trauma 🫣🫠 #brokenneck #chiropractor #chiropractortiktok #neckcrack #neckcracks #collegefail
While in her freshman year at the University of Missouri, Lily was doing her “morning routine” that included a bit of a “pop, pop, pop” of her neck. Sadly, that morning, it was “pop, pop, snap.”
Lily remembers being in “big time pain” and being terrified to tell her mom what happened because she didn’t want to prove her right. However, she had no choice since she couldn’t move her neck and it was stuck to one side. When someone from the dorm finally came to check on Lily, they didn’t think her injury was a big deal and made her walk to the hospital’s emergency room with her neck broken.
Lily later found out she had a compression fracture of her top two vertebrae. She also sprained and/or strained “almost every tendon and ligament” there is in the neck. It seems extreme, but such extensive injuries were possible largely because she has mild hypermobility syndrome.
@lilyzacharias Replying to @Juliette Johnson how i became the girl your chiropractor warned you about #brokenneck #neckinjury #neckcrack #crackingbones #chiropractic #chiropractortiktok #collegestories
Lily spent two weeks in a neck brace and had to do physical therapy for a month to get back to normal. However, despite hearing the details of her harrowing ordeal, many commenters said cracking their own neck feels too good to stop, even if they end up breaking it.
Still, there were plenty of people who were scared to death to ever try it themselves. I’m in that camp!
