A 10-year-old Australian boy was left in a coma on Friday following a collision earlier this week between two helicopters that killed four people, including the boy’s mother.
Another 9-year-old boy, who was hospitalized in critical condition after the accident, woke up on Thursday after suffering a head injury, according to health authorities. The mother of the 9-year-old boy remained hospitalized in stable condition.
Three other people who were injured in the collision were released from hospitals on Thursday, according to Queensland Health.
Police said one helicopter was taking off and the other was landing when they collided near Sea World theme park on Queensland’s Gold Coast on Monday afternoon.
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A pilot, two British visitors and the 10-year-old’s mother, Vanessa Tadros, 36, were killed when the helicopter they were traveling in crashed to the ground after its rotor blades were sheared. The most seriously injured were on board that helicopter.
The pilot of the second helicopter managed to land safely on a sandy outcrop despite extensive damage to the aircraft, authorities said.
An emergency worker can be seen above standing next to a helicopter that crashed after a collision near SeaWorld, on the Gold Coast, Australia, on January 2, 2023. A 10-year-old Australian boy remained in a coma on 6 from January. after the accident.
(Image by Dave Hunt/AAP via AP)
Queensland Health said 10-year-old Nicholas Tadros, from Sydney, remained in critical condition. A family relative told News Corp that the boy’s latest surgery to stop internal bleeding had been successful.
Earlier this week, the boy’s father, Simon Tadros, wrote on social media that his son was in an induced coma and connected to a life support machine to help him breathe.
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“He is in a very serious and critical condition. I ask all your prayers to get my little man back to me,” Simon Tadros wrote.
Health authorities said 9-year-old Leon de Silva had woken up at Brisbane Children’s Hospital on Thursday morning. Ella Winnie’s mother, 33, was also awake and in stable condition with two broken legs, a damaged left knee, a broken right shoulder and a broken clavicle.
Also killed in the crash were pilot Ashley Jenkinson, 40, British tourists Ron Hughes, 65, and Diane Hughes, 57.
John Orr-Campbell, a director of Sea World Helicopters, which operated both planes, said in a statement that Jenkinson was “a first-class pilot, a first-class man and a wonderful father, partner and friend.”
He said the company also mourned the death of the passengers and “I cannot imagine the terrible sadness their families and loved ones must feel.”
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Video filmed by one of the passengers of the helicopter that managed to land showed another passenger trying to warn the pilot that the second helicopter was approaching fast by tapping him on the shoulder.
The passenger then squeezes the edge of the pilot’s seat to hold him down as the cockpit is sprayed with broken glass after one of the second helicopter’s rotor blades hits the windshield.
The Australian Transport Safety Office is investigating the accident.
