A teenager coming out of a 10-month coma is not aware of the coronavirus pandemic, despite having contracted the disease twice.
Joseph Flavill, 19, was hit by a car while walking through Burton upon Trent, Staffordshire, on March 1 last year, three weeks before the start of the first British national blockade.
He spent months in a coma after suffering a traumatic brain injury, but is slowly starting to recover and has started to respond.
Her aunt, Sally Flavill Smith, told the Guardian: “He will not know anything about the pandemic, as he has been sleeping for 10 months. His conscience is starting to improve now, but we just don’t know what he does.
“I just don’t know where to start. A year ago, if someone had told me what was going to happen last year, I don’t think they would have believed it. I have no idea how Joseph is going to understand what we all went through. “
She said the family tried to explain by video call that they cannot be with him personally due to coronavirus restrictions, but did not try to explain the scale of the pandemic.
“When he is awake in his room, he will have no idea why he is there. We talked about it over the phone and tried to alert you that we really want to be there holding your hands, but we just can’t do that [because of Covid].
“But we try to keep it as simple as possible, we really don’t have time to get into a huge pandemic – it just doesn’t seem real, does it? When he can really have face-to-face contact, this will be an opportunity to really try to explain to him what happened. “
The teenager, who was treated at Leicester General hospital and has now been transferred to the Adderley Green care center in Stoke-on-Trent to continue his recovery, started moving his members when asked and gets involved with family and friends winking and smiling .
Flavill Smith said the teenager is able to follow commands like touching his left and right ear, moving both legs and saying yes and no blinking, while his first smiles bring the family to tears.
“We still have a long way to go, but the steps he has taken in the past three weeks have been absolutely incredible,” said Flavill Smith.
He caught Covid twice during his recovery from the accident, but he recovered on both occasions.
Flavill’s mother, Sharon, was able to visit her son on his 19th birthday in December, but had to remain socially aloof and wear full PPE all the time. “At that point, Joseph was not as conscious as he is now, and I think she felt very sad because she was not sure that Joseph could even see who she was. She had been waiting for months to see him.
Before the accident, Flavill of Tutbury, Staffordshire, was a sporting and active teenager and would receive his Duke of Edinburgh gold award in May.
Through the Joseph’s Journey campaign, the family raised more than £ 30,000 to support the teenager in his long-term recovery.