He is the Huddersfield teenager who cheated death five years ago this week.
And now Callum Parkinson is looking ahead to a bright new future with a Huddersfield engineering firm.
Callum, now 18, has been taken on as a business apprentice with Cummins Turbo Technologies in Huddersfield.
Callum suffered serious head injuries when he was knocked down on Station Road, just yards from his home on Fenay Drive in Fenay Bridge, on June 9 2009.
He survived thanks to the speedy response of the Yorkshire Air Ambulance, which flew him to Leeds General Infirmary for emergency surgery.
“He’s here thanks to their skills, the skills of the doctors and his own grit and determination”, said his mum, Christine.
“It has been a difficult five years but he is doing really well and now has this great opportunity at Cummins.
“He had a year at Kirklees College on an electrician’s course after getting his GCSEs at King James School and then got the offer to be an apprentice.
“He really loves the work”.
Callum, who was a promising member of the Newsome Panthers Under 14s rugby league team, was accidentally hit by a car as he was being dropped off following a training session in June 2009. He had two brain operations and spent four weeks on a ventilator in intensive care before finally being able to breathe unaided.
After being moved onto the neuroscience rehabilitation ward, he slowly started to learn how to feed himself again, regained some of his speech and started to walk.
A further operation was carried out to insert metal plates in Callum’s head where some of his skull had been removed to ease the swelling on his brain.
The accident meant his very promising rugby playing career was at an end, but Callum has now qualified as a rugby referee and has also taken up touch rugby.
He is also a keen footballer as well as a keen Huddersfield Giants supporter.
He and his family, including older bother Joe and younger sister Chloe, helped raise a staggering £15,000 for the Yorkshire Air Ambulance which saved his life.
Callum has also won a courage award and was one of the lucky few chosen to carry the Olympic Torch in 2012.
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