Laura James
The Sentinel
STAFFORDSHIRE, England — Car crash victim Sharon Tharme has praised an off-duty paramedic for saving her 12-year-old son’s life.
Schoolboy Jake Tharme was left unconscious with horrific facial injuries after his head smashed through the passenger window of his mum’s car.
Jake needed hundreds of stitches to his face and spent five days in hospital.
But his badly damaged face had to be held in place by an off-duty paramedic who is thought to live near the crash scene and ran out to help.
Now Sharon and her family want to thank the NHS worker for her quickthinking following the two-car collision in Meir Heath on October 28. Brave Jake said: “I just want to thank the paramedic so much for helping me. I am getting better.”
Sharon was driving home from Breathe City Church, in Hanley, with Jake, nine-year-old daughter Amelia and 20-month-old son Mason at the time of the Hilderstone Road crash.
The 33-year-old said: “After the crash, Amelia said, ‘mum is Jake alive’, but when I turned to him and saw that he was unconscious, the first thing I thought was that he was dead.
“The next thing I knew, a woman was knocking on my window. She told me she was an off-duty paramedic and she needed me to calm down.”
The woman instructed Sharon on how to help deal with her children while the paramedic supported Jake’s head.
Sharon added: “I panicked, she was telling me things and I was shouting that I couldn’t do it, but she was firm with me. She said I needed to cut off Jake’s seatbelt and clothes to see if he had any more injuries. I didn’t want to do it but she told me she couldn’t let go of Jake’s head.
“She stayed with us until the paramedics arrived and I am just so grateful because it was horrendous. She was absolutely brilliant with us. She saved our lives.”
The family was taken to the University Hospital of North Staffordshire where Mason was treated for cuts and burns from his seatbelt.
Sharon, of Stafford, added: “Everything is still quite raw. Amelia is scared of the dark and Mason keeps throwing himself out of his cot. Jake has gone back to school but he doesn’t mix with any of the other children.
“I just have to keep telling them they are lucky to be alive.” Police are investigating the crash which involved a Vauxhall Astra and a Vauxhall Corsa at the junction of Hilderstone Road and Knenhall Lane. The casualties in the other car - a woman in her 30s, a teenage girl and a 10-year-old girl - suffered minor injuries.
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