'Invincible' boy recovering after being hit by car

A schoolboy has spoken of his continuing recovery from catastrophic brain injuries he suffered when he was hit by a car.

Charlie was seriously hurt when he was knocked down as he walked home from school in Braunstone, Leicester, in February 2025.

He was taken to the Queen's Medical Centre in Nottingham, where he spent weeks in a coma before beginning rehabilitation. It has meant learning again how to walk and speak, as well as do simple things like cleaning his teeth.

"I was hit by a car and I survived and I'm invincible... kind of," 11-year-old Charlie said.

Charlie's mother Emma said when she got a call telling her Charlie had been inhured, she had thought it might be "a couple of broken bones and a trip to the Leicester Royal Infirmary".

"But never did I dream his injuries were going to be as bad as they were, especially on his brain," she said.

Emma said she believed Charlie might not be here today had it not been for the quick thinking of the air ambulance personnel called to the scene.

"They said, 'We're going to have to put him to sleep now to protect him and protect his brain' because his brain was just swelling and swelling in his head and there was no give," she said.

"I believe still to this day that the air ambulance saved Charlie's life, because if it wasn't for what they did in the first instance, I truly believe that when we got to Queen's Medical Centre it could have been a whole different story."

The team attending him had to decide how to tackle the swelling by inducing the coma at the scene in Braunstone on 12 February last year.

Justine Alexander, clinical liaison officer for the Air Ambulance Service, said: "Putting a child to sleep isn't ideal. That's sort of a really protective way of making sure they're doing the best that they can."

As the weather was bad, Charlie ended up being taken by road to Nottingham in what his mum said was a "matter of minutes."

Emma said "it was hour by hour" at that stage. After a few days, the family were asked to make a decision following an early morning call from the hospital.

Charlie could have a drain fitted to release pressure on his brain or an operation to remove part of his skull, which would be replaced with a metal plate in his head.

"Luckily, for Charlie and for us, the drain worked," said Emma.

"They told us he wouldn't be back on the ward 'til around lunchtime on the intensive care unit, but actually at 8 o'clock the next morning he was back on the ward."

However, it was a few weeks later before they decided it was time to wake him up and he had to be weaned off the medication "very slowly".

"And that's when we had the biggest journey of all and that was rehabilitation, which we're still doing daily," said Emma.

Charlie added: "I had to learn to hold my head up, sit upright, brush my teeth.

"I had to learn to stand up and I had to learn to walk - and I lost my voice."

Emma said: "I think a lot of the professionals at Queen's knew the severity of the brain damage... they were very surprised when he started to turn the corner to show signs of coming back to life.

"They call him the Queen's miracle because he shouldn't have survived what he survived."

Charlie has since been reunited with the East Midlands Air Ambulance team that attended the scene.

The team serves Leicestershire, Rutland and Derbyshire.

"When he came back to meet us, the crew were so pleased to see him walk through the door," Alexander added.

"They don't always know what goes on once they've left the patient.

"Unfortunately, we don't save everybody, but they know that they do the best that they can do.

"He's just fantastic. We love him."

Patrick Davies, paediatric critical care consultant at Nottingham University Hospital NHS Trust, said: "Charlie is one of our superheroes.

"We all went through a lot of worry when he came in with an extremely severe brain injury, and for a long time we didn't know whether he was going to survive, or how well he would recover.

"He worked so hard on his rehabilitation, and he is an inspiration to us all."

A spokesperson for Leicestershire Police said an investigation into what happened had taken place and no arrests had been made.

Charlie and his family have been nominated for the BBC Make A Difference Awards in the Young Hero category.

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