After 12 days in coma, Tadija, who almost drowned, triumphantly extended arms before heading home

Foto: Privatna arhiva

"It's time to head home, greetings to everyone and all the best," wrote the father of the five-year-old, who was drowning in Pefkochori on August 22. The child was in an induced coma for 12 days, and today he and his dad headed home. In front of the hospital, where he was fighting for his life, his father put him on his shoulders, and little Tadija triumphantly extended his arms.

As the boy's dad told us, the two are returning to Serbia today.

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"We just need to buy a few things and start. My son remembers everything, there is no damage, thank God, but he's not saying anything and I don't want to ask him," the child's father told Telegraf.rs.

"Judging by his fear I see that he is aware of what he had done behind our backs, so he is scared and won't let me move away from him," little Tadija's dad said.

Photo: Facebook/Angel Angelov Bugi

On August 22, the boy went into the sea and started drowning. Fortunately, he was pulled out in time. He was already unconscious by then, but was successfully resuscitated and urgently transported by ambulance first to a health center and then to the Hippokration Hospital in Thessaloniki.

He was pulled out of the sea by a man who provides water sports services and was resuscitated with the help of a doctor who happened to be on the beach as a tourist.

"The boy is placed in the intensive care unit. He was immediately connected to the machines and is still on them. There is slight improvement, but we cannot say yet whether the drowning will have consequences on him," Telegraf.rs was told at the hospital at the time.

IT WAS AWFUL

Eyewitnesses told Telegraf.rs that the rescue scene was very disturbing.

"The resuscitation took a long time. It was only after 15-20 minutes that he showed signs of life and then closed his eyes again. After that, an ambulance came and took him away. My wife was crying and I was praying in shallows water, as tears came down," said a Serb who found himself on the beach at that difficult time.

(J.S.)