WHILE many boys would have been playing outdoors with their friends during the summer holiday, Tyler Silcox has spent most of August in and out of hospital.

The seven-year-old was rushed to the Royal Gwent Hospital last month after he was involved in an accident with a car on August 11, and his left leg broke in two places.

Tyler, from Henry Wood Walk in Alway, Newport, has already had one operation and faces another in less than a month's time.

He has also missed his first few days in year three at Ringland Primary School.

Mother Michelle Fleet, 24, and father Nicky Silcox, 26, are using a wheelchair from the Red Cross to help get Tyler around as he is unable to walk unaided.

Ms Fleet said Tyler was outside her grandmother’s home in Sullivan Circle, Ringland, for just ten minutes before the accident happened.

She had been in the house with her brother and sister when the children he had been playing with knocked at the door.

“As I came up the road I saw him between two parked cars sat on the curb,” said Ms Fleet.

As well as breaking his left leg the accident had caused it to swell badly, she said.

“I grabbed his head I asked if he was alright. He said no - he was going in and out of consciousness at the time," his mother said.

Tyler was driven to the Royal Gwent Hospital by the father of one of his friends, where his leg was put into a full cast.

After coming out of hospital on August 15, the next week he went to a fracture clinic where doctors said if they didn’t operate his left leg could end up 1cm shorter than the other one.

That meant by the time he is 15 he could be walking with a limp. The operation, which involved putting rods into his leg, took place on August 22.

Tyler was given a soft cast and allowed home the next Monday.

At the moment his parents are keeping him out of school until he gets his hard cast tomorrow, after which its hoped he will be able to return in his wheelchair.

He will need another operation to remove the rods in three weeks' time.

In the meantime he cannot get about without the use of a frame or a wheelchair, and even by the time the cast is off and the bone has healed he will need physiotherapy.

It could be another two months until the bone is fully healed.

His mum said Tyler has been doing very well, despite everything he has been through.

“The first couple of days after the accident he was in a lot of pain,” Ms Fleet said.

“He’s managing quite well now though.”

“We’re just glad he’s OK,” Ms Fleet added. “It could have been much worse.”