The parents of a 12-year-old boy critically ill in a French hospital were today desperately trying to raise cash to bring him home to Bradford.

Graham Shillabeer was riding a bike in a village in mid-France when he was hit by a car and badly injured.

The boy, who was with his long distance lorry driver father, is now in the Intensive Care Unit of a hospital in Dijon where he is in a semi-coma.

His divorced parents have been told it will cost about £5,000 to bring him back to Leeds General Infirmary, where a bed would be available for him in the paediatric ICU.

His mother, Georgina Puttock, 37, said from her home in Lymington Drive, Holme Wood: "I am a single parent with five other children and I can't afford to pay for them to bring him back.

"It's terrible - and it's going to take so much to get him back to England.

"I'm really worried about him - I want him back as quickly as possible.

"We are completely in the dark - I'm only finding out second hand what's happening."

His father, also called Graham, took his son down to Italy in his lorry and was on his way back to Calais when they stopped at a drivers' lodge south of Dijon which he uses regularly.

Mr Shillabeer, who is still in France with his son, said: "He was on a bike with another lad when he was hit from behind by a car.

"He hit the windscreen and then rolled off.

"Luckily there were two doctors passing and they treated him until the ambulance arrived.

"I just burst into tears - I couldn't believe it.

"They say he has got fluid on his brain but they don't know whether he has got permanent brain damage because he still hasn't come out of the coma.

"His eyes are open but he isn't awake."

Mr Shillabeer, 52, said he filled in a Department of Health E111 form for his son so that medical fees for treatment would be paid for in case of an accident.

But the form does not cover medical evacuation home and Mr Shillabeer did not take out travel insurance to cover his son.

The British Vice Consul in nearby Lyon, Mrs Jeanie Labaye, said a country would only pay for the medical evacuation of a patient if it could not provide the treatment that patient needed.

"I have asked them if they could bend the rules very slightly but I won't have any answer immediately," she said.

A spokesman at the hospital said Graham was likely to be in the ICU for another week.

Doctors on the ICU in Leeds General Infirmary have contacted Bradford Health to see if the authority can pay the cost of bringing Graham home.

A spokesman said: "We understand he could probably be transferred as long as there is an expert medical team bringing him back."

Bradford Health public health director Dr Dee Kyle said: "Unfortunately the authority can't help funding with the repatriation costs but what we are trying to do is to pursue various charity contacts to see if they can help."

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