'I still have nightmares about car accident boy' Appeal for his family to get in touch.

Byline: Alex Moore

TRACY O'CONNOR still has nightmares about the night she saw a 10-year-old boy hit by a car.

The mum of one - en route from Tonyrefail to Cardiff - was first on the scene when the schoolboy was knocked down.

She gave him life-saving first aid before ambulance crews arrived.

And although she knows that he did survive the accident, she has no idea who he is - or what sort of recovery he has made in the seven months since then.

Now Tracy, from Tonyrefail, wants the injured boy's family to get in touch to let her know he's OK.

"It was on Llantrisant Road, (Church Village) just past the traffic lights, that it happened," said the 35-year-old.

"The Ford Ka in front of me stopped. I didn't think there was anything wrong at first. Then I saw a pair of shoes at the side of the car, and realised someone had been knocked down.

"I got out, went round, and there he was. His head was bleeding."

Tracy is full-time carer to her own eight-year-old son, Liam, and has first-aid training. She was carrying dressings which she used to bandage the unconscious boy's head.

During the 40 minutes it took to contact the emergency services and for an ambulance to arrive, Tracy controlled the boy's bleeding and kept him warm, and also found time to comfort and re-assure the woman who had been driving the car.

"She was in her early 60s, I suppose," she said. "She was distraught, and was having chest pains, she was so worried.

"It could have happened to anyone, it was just one of those accidents that couldn't have been prevented."

When the emergency crew arrived, Tracy helped the paramedics put the boy on a stretcher, and they said her actions "probably saved his life".

Since that night, Tracy hasn't seen the boy or had any confirmation of how he got on in hospital.

"I know he got taken to the Royal Glamorgan Hospital, and then to the Heath Hospital, but because I'm not family there was only so much they could tell me.

"One woman at the hospital said the boy was 'alive' but couldn't say anything else."

In the last seven months, that's been her only reassurance. But for Tracy - who lives on Heol Brynteg with partner, Lee Richardson - it has not been enough to stop the accident haunting her.

"I still have nightmares about it," she said. "The boy was 10, but he was a young 10, so he didn't look that different to my son.

"Every time I see my son and blink, then I see that boy, lying there on the road. I still have nightmares about what happened, and I can't imagine what the lady driving the car must have gone through.

"But I know once I speak to the parents of this child it will put a lot of my worries at rest."

Are you, or do you know, the family of the boy who got knocked down? If so, contact our reporter, Alex Moore, on 01443 665154 or via e-mail, [e-mail]

CAPTION(S):

Tracy O''Connor, of Tonyrefail, wants to get in touch with the family of a 10-year-old boy whose life she saved with first aid