Bike-crash boy's mother in safety plea
The mother of a 12-year-old boy who was seriously injured when he crashed a trail bike has made a plea for young people to learn from her son's mistakes.
Riley Brookes, the brother of former X Factor contestant Josh Brookes, suffered head injuries when he was thrown from a friend's trail bike in Merriwa on April 15.
The inexperienced rider got on the bike while he was at Dalvik Park with friends, despite warnings from his mother Lynda Brookes that he was never to touch it.
Soon after the accident, Ms Brookes published a photo of her son in hospital on Facebook in the hope it would remind young people that they are not invincible.
"Let this be a lesson. Do as your mother says," she wrote. "He will need to learn a lot all over again. But saying that, it is Riley Brookes and he won't take it lying down so we will see when he wakes up."
It is understood Riley was injured when he was thrown from the bike after hitting a metal gate at high speed.
Thousands of people became aware of Riley's plight after musician Adil Memon, who also competed in The X Factor, shared the photo of him in hospital.
"Spread this around and help us create awareness, so that kids like Riley can make better choices and so that the dangers involved in doing these things unsupervised can be known," he wrote.
