Courageous disabled lad gets garden makeover (From Redditch Advertiser)

Courageous disabled lad gets garden makeover

2:30pm Monday 25th July 2011 in News

THE mother of a courageous disabled Redditch boy says the work of a national charity is going to transform her son’s life.

Kearan Tongue-Gibbs, aged 11, of Mount Pleasant, who attends Walkwood Middle School, was born with no forearms or hands and also suffers from reflex anoxic seizures. These seizures can be induced by any unexpected stimuli such as pain, fear or fright. The trigger factor causes the heart to stop or slow down dramatically, which in turn reduces the flow of blood to the brain.

Despite all this, Kearan loves to get stuck into any challenge put before him and is a keen sportsman. He loves his sport and has been identified as being “gifted and talented” by the English Cricket Board. The talented spin bowler and batsman grips the ball or bat in the fold of his arm to play.

When his grandmother wrote to the WellChild charity, telling them about Kearan, the charity decided that he was a very worthy recipient of their help and said a team would come out and transform his garden, enabling him to increase his sporting skills.

WellChild is a national charity which is committed to helping sick children throughout the UK as they deal with the consequences of serious illness and complex conditions.

For two days last week, a team from the charity set to work on Kearan’s garden as part of its Helping Hands projects. The work was done in partnership with NPower. The team cleared out the garden, levelled it, laid a new lawn and put up bowling nets so Kearan can develop his talent.

His mum Carrie Gibbs said: “We were so thrilled that WellChild decided to help us out.

“When they had completed the work, I told the team that I really could not put into words what they had done for Kearan. This is going to completely transform my son’s life and I am so unbelievably grateful.”

But Kearan still has to wait for a while before he gets to enjoy the hard work of the WellChild team.

Mrs Gibbs added: “Kearan has been told he cannot go out and play on the turf for another two weeks. He is so excited, he is just itching to get out there.”