The family of a nine-year-old boy who was nearly killed in a horrific scooter accident after he fell down an eight-feet-drop are raising money to thank those who saved his life. Ioan Watts from Bedwas was rushed to the University Hospital of Wales in Cardiff on October 3 after he fell off his scooter outside his home and was left critically injured.
His mum Lydia Watts said the schoolboy fell eight feet down and landed directly on his head on the concrete ground, Wales Online reports. The accident left Ioan in a coma for almost a month and six months later he is still recovering from the horrendous accident after suffering brain swelling and a fracture in his skull.
The 43-year-old credited the Welsh Air Ambulance charity and Noah Ark's Children Hospital for saving her son's life as she said he would not have survived without their help. Describing how the incident unfolded, Lydia recalled: "We were getting ready for school and he was ready early because it was his brother Rhodri's eighth birthday.
"He went outside on his scooter and he fell. It wouldn't have been a major disaster but then he slid and fell off a ledge at a height. His brother heard him yelling, so we went to see and as soon as we saw him I could tell something really bad had happened.
"He sat up and was briefly conscious, but when I got to him he had a fit, fell back and went unconscious." At this point, terrified Lydia said she went into 'survival mode' and shouted for her husband Rich to call the emergency services.
She said paramedics were quick to arrive at the scene before the air ambulance took over. Lydia said: "After my husband called the ambulance, I stayed with Ioan and put him in the recovery position.
"Then the ambulance call handler told me to put him on his back because they thought I might have to do CPR on him. Luckily he didn't stop breathing. The ambulance came here really quickly and then the air ambulance landed next to the house and saved his life."
When paramedics checked her son's Glasgow Coma Scale (GCS) to assess how unwell he was, Lydia said they recorded a score of three which is the lowest possible score and is associated with an extremely high mortality rate. She continued: "Air ambulance staff worked on him at home for about an hour or more," Lydia said. "They put a breathing tube on him and gave him medication to minimise the swelling in his brain.
"They stabilised him the best they could and then took him to the hospital. He went straight to resuscitation in the main hospital. There were about 20 medical professionals working on him while we stood in the corner in a daze.
"They put him through a scanner and said there was a bit of swelling in his brain and his skull was fractured in multiple places." Once Ioan was stabilised, Lydia said he was moved to the Noah's Ark paediatric intensive care unit where he stayed for three-and-a-half weeks and was 'probably the illest child there for quite some time'.
Doctors kept monitoringIoan's brain swelling regularly but the pressure only continued to increase which meant the nine-year-old required emergency surgery to save his life. Lydia said: "On day five following his accident Ioan needed emergency surgery to save his life.
"They needed to remove part of his skull to relieve the pressure on his brain. They said if they didn't operate straight away, he would be gone.
"They put him in an MRI scanner to see what was happening before the operation and said they weren't sure he would come out the other end because they couldn't monitor him as closely and it took about an hour." After the operation, medics kept Ioan at a cool temperature and had him rest at an angle in an attempt to reduce the swelling on his brain but it was still unclear whether or not he would survive and he remained in a coma for around two more weeks.
Lydia said: "He was 'do not resuscitate' for a while. They said if his heart stopped beating it wouldn't be in his best interest to resuscitate him.
"Then little tiny things started happening. His pupils started reacting and his eyes opened a little bit. He started breathing for himself and began to urinate by himself. After three-and-a-half weeks in intensive care they agreed to take his breathing tube out.
"They didn't know if he was going to be able to breathe for himself but he did. That was a huge relief for us. They had been talking about doing that for 10 days but he hadn't been strong enough previously."
As soon as Ioan was breathing on his own he was moved to a ward with Noah's Ark's neuro rehabilitation programme, where he spent the next 10 weeks until he could finally leave in January. Each day he would have physiotherapy, occupational therapy and speech and language therapy and also had visits from a hospital teacher.
Lydia said: "We were basically living there from October until after Christmas. He couldn't speak or sit up when he first woke up so we didn't know if he was going to be bed ridden for the rest of his life, wheelchair ridden or incontinent or if he would ever speak again, but in November, his recovery was so astonishingly quick.
"At the start of November he couldn't speak or move, but by the end of November he could walk, talk and play on his Xbox - not quite as he could before as he was still relearning a lot. Now we are four or five months later and he can do almost everything he could do before."
Although Ioan said the family feel incredibly lucky to have Ioan nearly back to his former self, she said they still have a long way to go on his road to recovery. The family have been told it could take two to three years before the full extent of his brain injury is known.
Speaking of how he is now, she said: "He is in school full-time now after gradually transitioning back and he needs extra support. He struggles with his attention span and impulsivity such as shouting inappropriate things out, which he didn't do before. He was always a very normal, shy, quiet and clever boy, and he is now very different."
Lydia says Ioan is aware of what happened to him and they help him by encouraging him to speak about it. She said: "He is aware of what happened and talks about it a lot. He doesn't want to be treated any differently than anyone else, he just wants to be normal.
"He gets upset sometimes thinking about what happened but we encourage him to talk about it but not to dwell on it too much. It's been harder for Rhodri than anybody because they are so close in age and are best mates.
"It was really hard for him with his brother and parents being gone, but luckily his older brothers Reuben, 22, and Tavis, 20, were there to look after him." Ioan will be running the Caerphilly 2k with Rhodri and around 30 friends from his school to give something back to the medical staff who helped save his life
The schoolboy has already exceeded his target of £1,000, but wants to raise as much as he possibly can for Noah's Ark Children's Hospital and Wales Air Ambulance. You can support his fundraiser here.
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