I pray all day for my son to wake

VIGIL: Adam McQuillan who has been in a coma for almost a month

Mum’s vigil at the bedside of coma boy Adam, 8

AN Oldham mum has spent a month at her young son’s bedside praying that her boy will wake from a coma.

Anita McQuillan has spent every waking hour hoping 8-year-old Adam will recover from injuries he suffered when he collided with a car in Alt almost four weeks ago.

Paramedics took him to the Royal Oldham Hospital with a potentially fatal skull fracture. He was then stabilised before being transferred to the Manchester Children’s Hospital.

Doctors have told 30-year-old Anita that Adam has brain damage, but no one will knows how severe until he wakes. His mum sits by his bedside, talking to him and playing his favourite films and songs in the hope that he will know she is there.

She said: “Only time will tell when he will wake up. It has been emotional turmoil.

“Everything was going right, we’d just come home from holiday, my partner, who is also called Adam, and I had got engaged and we were planning our wedding — then this.

“It has turned our lives upside down. I just want my boy to wake up and recognise that I’m here.

“The doctors told us after the accident that he may not make it. In those first 48 hours I didn’t sleep, just cried. But Adam pulled through. All we can do now is hope.”

CCTV footage has shown that the driver of the car was not to blame.

Adam, a polite and loveable boy, was walking to a shop near to his home when the accident happened in Abbeyhills Road on Saturday, September 17.

The accident was a tragic twist of fate for the family. Anita, of Coverham Avenue, who lost her two-year-old daughter to Sudden Infant Death Syndrome in 2006.

She added: “You do think ‘why us?’ I kept Adam on such a tight leash. He went to chess, cubs, choir and swimming, but he wasn’t allowed to play out on the street — the only place I would let him venture to was the shop.”

Adam, a pupil at Delph Primary School, has shown signs of improvement. He is breathing on his own and has been moved from intensive care to another ward.

Anita, who also has an eight-month-old daughter, has slept at the hospital for all but three nights since the accident.

Family, friends and even strangers have embarked on a mission to raise funds for a mobile scanner for the hospital already collecting more than £2,000.

Anita added: “The support has been amazing.”