ABC correspondent Adam Harvey is a very lucky man -- and revealed just how close he came to death when he was shot in the neck in the Philippines.
Harvey, the broadcaster's South-East Asia correspondent, was on assignment in city of Marawi on Thursday when he was struck by a stray bullet. The journalist was inside a compound in the Lanao del Sur Provincial Capitol safe-zone taking photos of Filipino evacuees when he was struck.
On Friday, Harvey reported that he was recovering well but said he miraculoulsy escaped what would have been fatal shot by just one centimetre.
"What a legend -- Dr Emmanuel Ibay -- spent an hour teasing bullet from my neck. It stopped 1cm from the carotid artery. 'Home run' if it hit," Harvey wrote on Twitter.
The carotid arteries are the key arteries in the neck supplying the head with blood -- and any damage to them can be fatal. Indeed, he first responded publicly by reporting that the bullet "missed everything important".
Earlier Harvey shared a shocking X-ray picture of the bullet still lodged in his neck with a one-word caption: "Lucky". He also reported the doctor identified the bullet as coming from an M-16 assault rifle.
The ABC Indonesia was seen being put in a cautionary neck brace after the shot in footage taken while he was being treated in an emergency medical clinic.
"I'll be fine. They want to put me in a neck brace but I think as a precaution. It literally looks like I've been hit with a cricket ball," he said while speaking on a phone in the video.
Harvey, the son of the late Nine News veteran journalist Peter Harvey, has been in Marawi reporting on an Islamic State occupation of the city in which civilians have been killed during military attempts to recover the location.
On Friday he maintained his sense of good humour about the situation, seemingly embarrassed by all the media attention he'd attracted.
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