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Man survives after metal shard crashes through windshield

CHARLOTTE, N.C. — A Kings Mountain man is recovering in a hospital after a large piece of metal crashed through his car while he was traveling along Interstate 85 near Belmont on Thursday night.

Family members said it is a miracle that Patrick Rowland survived. He was in the passenger seat and his wife, Ashlie Rowland, was driving when it happened.

The Rowlands think something fell off a passing tractor-trailer and smashed through the windshield.

“He’s very lucky to be here, really,” Ashlie Rowland told Eyewitness News anchor Liz Foster.

He got stitches and is awaiting his first of several reconstructive surgeries at Carolinas Medical Center. The metal broke nine bones in his face and knocked him unconscious.

“The doctor actually pulled my wife outside and said he's seen a couple accidents like this and nobody has ever survived,” Patrick Rowland said. “He doesn't know how I survived."

Ashlie Rowland said that, when her husband slumped down into her lap, she thought the impact had killed him.

"God was with him that night, had to have been," Ashlie Rowland said.

The couple has five children and told Channel 9 they are thankful the kids were not with them at the time of the accident.

“I thank God it happened to me and not somebody else,” Patrick Rowland said.

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