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BOYS HAVE LUCKY ESCAPE

PORTPATRICK brothers Jack and Charlie Reynolds had a miracle escape last week after they wrote-off a car in a head-on smash on their pushbike.

The youngsters hit the car, which was travelling up the village's Main Street, so hard that they were thrown into the windscreen which shattered on impact.

Amazingly though, the two boys, who were not wearing helmets and had been riding the mountain bike in tandem, emerged from the crash alive.

Charlie (10) was rushed to hospital in Dumfries by ambulance under police escort. He spent two nights in the Royal Infirmary before being released on Thursday. Doctors at the Infirmary revealed he had come within a fraction of breaking his neck.

But the youngster was back home in Portpatrick this week to tell the tale with a broken leg and 12 stitches in a head wound to show for his pains.

His older brother Jack (14) required 21 stitches to be inserted in a deep gash in his leg and sustained cuts and bruises to his body as a result of his fall.

This week their mother spoke of her utter relief at her boys' miraculous escape. Julie Reynolds said:

"When I saw all the blood and the glass lying at the scene I thought the worst - I thought I had lost my two sons. The fact they both survived is miraculous".