Look at that big cheeky grin.
It’s hard to imagine that just five weeks ago this cute little boy, blowing bubbles and playing with his mum, was fighting for his life after being hit by a car outside his house in Middlesbrough.
Four-year-old Nathaniel Artley was left with horrific life-threatening injuries after being hit by a taxi on Cotswold Avenue on Sunday, March 8.
He underwent surgery and was put on a life support machine at Royal Victoria Infirmary in Newcastle.
His condition improved and he was taken off life support and moved to James Cook University Hospital in Middlesbrough.
Now he is back home with his relieved mum, Katrina Verrill, 35, who has recalled the terrifying moment she thought she had lost him.
After running out of the house and seeing him lying on the road, she scooped him up into her arms and brought him inside.
“I gave a curdling scream ‘He is dead’ and kept shouting at him to stay with me,” she said through her tears.“He lifted his right arm and looked at me. I have seen the death stare before but when it was your own child, that was it, his eyes were black.
“He died in the ambulance but they got him back.”
Nathaniel Artley
Katrina, who has three other children, Rebecca, 16, who lives in Scotland with her dad, and Carlos, 11, and Lennox, eight, said no one thought Nathaniel was going to survive his injuries which included a fractured skull, bleeding on the brain, two collapsed lungs, a broken rib, split spleen, perforated liver and pancreas and tears to his ear and the skin on his back and heel.
“He was smashed up,” said Katrina. “No-one knows just how bad he was. I have seen him suffer.
“When you look at him now you just can’t believe how he was. I thought I’d lost him.
“Every day he is bouncing back. Each target that was set he was achieving it and more.
“He is a proper little super hero.”
Neighbours and friends rallied round Katrina as she stayed by her son’s bedside and raised money to help the family.
They decorated the front room and the money has been spent on decorating Nathaniel’s room with Avengers - “superheroes like him” - and a DVD player for him as well as a cooker and beds for their home and a car.
She said a charity night, which was recently cancelled, will still be held, but will be a “thank you” to all those who supported her rather than a money-raising event.
“I just want to thank everyone who helped us,” she said.
Cotswold Avenue in Pallister Park, Middlesbrough
Katrina said a catalogue of “little things” led to the accident.
They had recently returned from a refuge and were only at the house setting up home ready to move in the following week.
She said before their time in the refuge “he would never have ran out of the house like that”.
She said she normally kept the front door locked but they had just returned from the shop and Nathaniel had hidden her keys “like the mischievous kid he is”.
When he heard an ice cream van pull up, he asked his mum for one but she said no as he had just had one.
Before she knew it he had ran out and been hit by a car.
Katrina has to keep an eye on his brain activity and behaviour to check how he is recovering from his brain injury and also try and protect the boisterous lad from knocking his healing scars.
“It’s so hard trying to make sure he doesn’t hurt himself,” she said.
“It’s like he’s gone back over a couple of years with his speech and his behaviour but it’s early days.
“I’m overwhelmed he is back home again. I’m happy he is here - he is my superhero.”
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