Mum who watched son, 5, get CPR after horror bike crash urges parents to buy helmets this Christmas

A distraught mum was told to “prepare for the worst” when her five-year-old son was involved in a horror bike crash. Marli Barnes spent nine days fighting for his life in an induced coma, having suffered two skull fractures and a broken shoulder when he was flung head-first into the side of house. The youngster had jumped on a friend’s “rust bucket” bike and rode down a steep hill.

But the bicycle had no brakes and Marli careered into a 4ft high garden wall at the bottom, before hitting the property, just yards from his home. His mum, Nikki, was horrified to see neighbours performing CPR on her unconscious son before an air ambulance landed at the scene. Nikki feared her son would not wake up from his induced coma but he thankfully woke up just over a week later and has since recovered, although concerns remain about his long-term development.

READ MORE: Strictly star breaks silence on ‘risky’ performance and says she’s ‘gutted’ Nikki has now urged anyone planning to buy their kids bikes this Christmas to make sure they get them a helmet too – and is also raising money to buy helmets for local kids in time for December 25. She said: “They might not look good, it’s not a cool thing to be wearing, but they do and will save your child’s life. Marli got lucky, another child might not get as lucky.

They could sustain more injuries than him. “As a mum, having to watch my five-year-old son get CPR at the scene and knowing he wasn’t breathing, it’s been traumatic. You do picture it when you’re trying to sleep.

It’s not something anyone would ever want to experience. We did think this could be his last Christmas. ” Marli Barnes playing with a bike different to the one involved in the accident (Image: Nikki Barnes/SWNS) Nikki said Marli had been playing with a big group of his pals on September 3 this year on a quiet cul-de-sac in Sowerby Bridge, West Yorkshire.

She’d told him to remain close to home as she prepared his dinner but he’d decided to walk to the top of his street, which sits on a very steep hill, and ride his friend’s bike to the bottom at speed. “Not even five minutes after having that conversation with Marli, I had two men walking down the garden path,” she said. “I thought ‘Oh gosh, what’s he done now?’ They just told me that my son was unconscious, passed out in somebody’s garden.

I literally just ran. I didn’t even wait to know where he was. “When I got there, there was an elderly couple, and an 80-year-old man was lying on the floor with Marli giving him CPR.

I couldn’t believe what I was seeing. It was so surreal. The bike was way too big for Marli.

It had no brakes. It was a rust bucket, basically. The couple said Marli had hit their home so hard that they thought something had fallen over upstairs.

” Within five minutes, Nikki said three ambulances arrived and paramedics cut away Marli’s clothes and began giving him oxygen as he had a series of seizures. An air ambulance later whisked him to Leeds General Infirmary, where he was diagnosed with base and frontal skull fractures – as well as a broken shoulder. Recalling the moment doctors gave her the grave news that he might not survive his ordeal, Nikki said: “They then told me the injuries that Marli had got and said, ‘the best thing to do is prepare yourself because we can’t tell you the outcome.

He’s got a breathing machine and we don’t know if he’s ever going to breathe on his own again’. ” The doting mum remained by Marli’s bedside, barely eating or sleeping, for the next eight day. She was reduced to tears when he called out her name when he finally awoke on his ninth day in the intensive care.

“The first thing Marli said coming around – he shouted ‘mum’ three times,” she said. “We all just cried. It was just so surreal that he actually spoke.

We were only in hospital two days after he woke up. He literally bounced back. He was walking after he woke up.

” Nikki said she had managed to book a trip abroad for plane-mad Marli just before Christmas after he managed to pull through the terrifying ordeal. She added: “We’ve actually made Marli’s wishes come true. We are going on holiday with him, jumping on a plane to Egypt for 10 days.

He’s been absolutely obsessed with aeroplanes since he was little, but it’s never something I’ve been able to do with Marli. So it’s making his dreams come true just to get on one. ”.