The Sheffield boy, 7, badly injured after being hit by car travelling the wrong way

Vincent Wade was only off out to play with his older brother Alfie.
Vincent Wade and dad Jim.Vincent Wade and dad Jim.
Vincent Wade and dad Jim.

The seven-year-old had just fixed his bike and his mum was getting ready to start tea.

'It was a beautiful day,' mum Rebecca Bramall recalls.

Vincent Wade and dad Jim.Vincent Wade and dad Jim.
Vincent Wade and dad Jim.

'His friends came across about quarter past five. He was itching to go out.

'Then we heard a bang and I just screamed.'

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Rebecca ran out of the house and saw Vincent's bike on one side of the road and him on the other, curled around a bollard.

When his dad Jim Wade ran over to him he wasn't conscious. His heart wasn't beating and he wasn't breathing.

Vincent Bramall at the site of his accident on Wesley StreetVincent Bramall at the site of his accident on Wesley Street
Vincent Bramall at the site of his accident on Wesley Street

After picking him up and carrying him to the grassed area at the side of the road, he gave him a couple of chest compressions and brought him back.

By this time a crowd of horrified onlookers had gathered, watching the little boy's dad desperately try to keep his son alive until the ambulance arrived.

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After being rushed to Sheffield Children's Hospital, Vincent had to have an emergency operation to remove a bleed and clotting on his brain.

Half of his shattered skull was removed and a later operation replaced it with a series of ceramic plates which will stay in place for the rest of his life.

But he survived.

It's every parent's worst nightmare, but on Sunday, June 10 this year, it happened to just yards outside the family's Wensley Street home in Grimesthorpe.

Wensley Street at the bottom is one way. Yet they say drivers '˜constantly' drive up it rather than carrying on up Owler Lane and joining the road further on, as they are meant to.

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'Around here they drive like complete and total idiots,' says Jim, aged 37.

'We want to raise awareness of what is happening in this area.'

Rebecca admits the one-way system isn't well signposted from the main road but there is a clearly visible '˜no entry' sign guarding the residential part of the road.

'They fly up here at 60 or 70 miles and hour,' says Jim.

'Police say they will red flag the area which means it is a hot spot but they don't do anything.

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'You can phone them 50 times a day but you just don't see them.'

But Jim and Rebecca say this doesn't just affect road safety.

The whole area is '˜lawless', they say.

Just two weeks before Vincent's accident, another child was knocked over just round the corner.

And the first time Vincent's brother Alfie went out on his bike after the accident he was pushed off it and attacked.

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'This part of town has been left to its own devices to rot,' says Rebecca, aged 32.

Since Vincent returned home his physical recovery has been good, and other than the huge scar on his head you wouldn't know he'd been involved in a serious car accident.

But Rebecca says the biggest problems are the things you can't see.

'We have had to get to know him again because his personality is not the same as it was before,' she says.

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'He has started having '˜accidents' and always wants to sleep in the big bed with us.'

'He was a very intelligent lad who was coming the top of his class,' added Jim.

'He was moved up a year in maths and got an award the week before it happened.

'He was smashing it but he can turn very quickly now.

'He has become a bit obsessed with death and talks about not wanting to die.

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'He thinks in a way kids his age shouldn't do and upsets himself.'

But the crash hasn't just impacted Vincent, the accident has had a profound effect on his whole family.

As well as mum Rebecca, dad Jim and Vincent there are Alfie, aged 15, Constantine, aged five, Ophelia, aged 3, and their dog Mahogany.

Jim says hearing cars continuing to speed up the road his son was nearly killed on it takes it out of him mentally.

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The couple say Alfie didn't leave the house for the whole of the six weeks holidays, so traumatised has he been by what happened.

And because the the effort of caring for Vincent - including home schooling the now eight-year-old - the couple have lost the tattoo business they ran from their home.

But they are only too aware it could have been a lot worse.

The driver was arrested but later released under investigation.

Police Sergeant, Phil Mackey, said: 'Our neighbourhood policing team are on routine patrol in the Wensley Street area.

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'We are continually working with various community groups and our partners with the aim of having a positive impact on people's behaviour.'

'Positive action is taken wherever possible, be that through legal processes or referrals to more appropriate agencies if criminal offences have not taken place.'