Boy, nine, nearly died after falling from his scooter down an eight-foot drop and landing headfirst onto the concrete – but is now on road to recovery six months later

• Ioan Watts was left in a coma for a month after falling down outside his home 
• Fundraising for Welsh Air Ambulance charity and Noah’s Ark Children’s Hospital 

The family of a nine-year-old boy who nearly died after falling off his scooter outside of his home are raising money to thank those who saved his life. 

Ioan Watts from Bedwas, south Wales, was rushed to the University Hospital of Wales in Cardiff on October 3 last year.

Tragically, he was left critically ill after falling down an eight-foot drop and landing directly onto his head on the concrete floor.

The horror accident left him in a coma for nearly a month, and six months later, he is still recovering from his injuries, his mother Lydia Watts, 43, has said.

But if it wasn’t for the life-saving work of the Welsh Air Ambulance charity and Noah’s Ark Children’s Hospital, the mother says that her son would not have survived the incident.

As a thank you for all the hard work the hospital has undertaken to save Ioan’s life, Mrs Watts says that her son will be running the Caerphilly 2k with his brother Rhodri and around 30 friends from his school. Ioan has already exceeded his target of £1,000

His mum Lydia Watts said Ioan fell down an eight-feet drop and landed directly onto his head on the concrete floor. The accident left him in a coma for nearly a month

Describing the nightmare incident, Mrs Watts said: ‘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, Mrs Watts says that she went into ‘survival mode’ and shouted for her husband Rich to call the emergency services.

She recalled the paramedics arrived at the scene quickly, before the air ambulance crew took over, saying: ‘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.’ 

When paramedics checked her son’s Glasgow Coma Scale (GCS) to monitor how unwell he was, where Mrs Watts said they recorded a score of three – which is the lowest possible score and is associated with an extremely high mortality rate.

The mother continued to say that air ambulance staff worked on Ioan for ‘an hour or more,’ adding: ‘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, Mrs Watts said that her son was transferred 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 were on hand to continuously monitor Ioan’s brain swelling, but rather than improving the pressure, his continued to increase.

This meant that Ioan needed emergency surgery to save his life.

Mrs Watts said: ‘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 life-saving operation, doctors and nurses continued to reduce the swelling on the nine-year-old’s brain – including keeping him at a cool temperature and laying him at an angle. 

However, it remained unclear if Ioan would survive and he remained in a coma for around two more weeks.

Ioan Watts from Bedwas was taken to the University Hospital of Wales in Cardiff on October 3 last year after he fell off his scooter and was left critically ill

As soon as Ioan was breathing independently he was transferred to a ward with Noah’s Ark’s neuro rehabilitation programme. Each day there he would have physiotherapy, occupational therapy and speech and language therapy

Mrs Watts said: ‘He was doing very little and they weren’t particularly hopeful. 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 independently he was transferred to a ward with Noah’s Ark’s neuro rehabilitation programme, where he received physiotherapy, occupational therapy and speech and language therapy. 

There, he spent the next 10 weeks until he finally left in January. 

Mrs Watts 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 Mrs Watts said the family feel incredibly lucky to have Ioan almost back to his former self, they have been informed by medics that it could take two to three years before the full extent of Ioan’s brain injury is known.

The 43-year-old mother has said her son wouldn’t have survived the incident if it wasn’t for the life-saving work of the air ambulance charity and Noah’s Ark Children’s Hospital

The mother said that the recovery has been a ‘really long process’ as her son is ‘still changing every week’. However, she said that Ioan is gradually transitioning back to school full-time, with extra support.

In looking back on the last six months, Mrs Watts said the family feel a combination of ‘lucky and traumatised’, adding: ‘It’s going to take us all a bit of time to process it all, adding that Ioan ‘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.’

As a thank you for all the hard work the hospital has undertaken to save Ioan’s life, Mrs Watts says that her son will be running the Caerphilly 2k on Sunday 14 May with his brother Rhodri and around 30 friends from his school. 

Ioan has already exceeded his target of £1,000, but wants to raise as much as he possibly can for both the Noah’s Ark Children’s Hospital and Wales Air Ambulance.

Explaining why she set the fundraiser up, Mrs Watts said: ‘The air ambulance came so quickly when he had his accident and I don’t think he would be alive if it wasn’t for them. The work they did on him before he even got to hospital probably made all the difference to him. 

‘Staff on the paediatric intensive care unit were also amazing. They are there nursing your child for 24 hours. Even when we were not sure if Ioan was going to survive, they were always so positive, trying to get the family involved with reading to him and things like that.

‘They would always answer our questions and tell us what was happening. They always had time for us even though they were very busy. Once we were on the ward at Noah’s Ark, they had a team there who brought toys to your children and things they were interested in and chatted to them. 

‘We want to raise money for these charities because Ioan wouldn’t be here without them. He’s lucky that he’s recovered as well as he has and he now wants to try and do something positive.’

You can support his fundraiser here: https://www.justgiving.com/crowdfunding/lydia-watts 

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