Hero dad risks life to shield eight-year-old son as duo plummet off balcony in bizarre accident
A brave father from Sydney risked his life by jumping off a four-meter bacony to save his eight-year-old son whom he saw falling off the structure.
The 42-year-old heroic dad, Brad Lewis, was reportedly playing with his son, Oscar, who was trying to use a Nerf gun at his dad earlier this month in Sydney.
A friend of the family, Annie Kendall, said that the incident occurred when the child fired a few plastic bullets at his father, they missed him and went over to the first-floor balcony.
Oscar tried to chase after the bullets and lost his balance over the railing and began to fall down when his father noticed and lunged at his son in an attempt to save him.
Kendall wrote: "Brad was close enough to see what was happening, lunged at Oscar and managed to grab him, but with Brad’s speed and weight headed in Oscar’s direction in the hope of saving him, they both ended up going over the balcony."
The family friend added that when a friend of Brad rushed to the duo's aide, the father asked him if his son was okay, according to Yahoo News.
"Don’t let them see me like this," he told his friend. "Don’t let me die, mate."
"During the fall, Brad recalls that he made sure he pinned Oscar to his chest and curled around him so that he could take the brunt of the impact – not Oscar," she added.
Both the father and the son plummeted from the balcony and crashed into the concrete driveway sustaining multiple injuries.
While the child suffered a concussion, bruising on the brain and a skull fracture, he has been released from the hospital and is staying with his mother. However, the father sustained serious injuries by taking "the full impact on his head."
"He sustained major head and neck injuries, cracking open his skull, bruising the brain, fracturing the C6 vertebrae, among a number of other head and body injuries," Kendall wrote.
"Doctors have expressed their astonishment that Brad is in fact still alive having sustained the injuries that he did," she added.
Brad reportedly faces six to 12 months of recovery ahead of him; meanwhile, his wife, Suz, has taken some time off work to take care of her family. However, there are concerns about the increasing costs which the family will have to endure, and a GoFundMe page has been set up for their financial assistance by Kendall.
Reports state that the family is hoping that Brad's 45 staples will be removed from his head next week and he is out of the ICU, while the child reportedly sleeps with his mother along with six pillows around him from "fear of falling out of bed."