BRAVE Ben Ridd is back home to celebrate his 14th birthday on Friday with his family.

The youngster has been in hospital since being critically injured in a youth boat race more than four months ago.

Family and friends were at his home in Herstone Close in Canford Heath to welcome him back on Friday last week.

Mum Leanne, a teacher at Montacute Special School in Poole, said: "It's fantastic to have him home, and so quickly.

"He's a very optimistic, determined boy - always the class joker, and still is. He was cheeky with the nurses in the hospital but they loved him and gave him presents on Friday."

Ben will return to Ashdown Technology College in Poole for the afternoons from Monday after his physiotherapy sessions in the mornings.

He suffered a bleed on his brain and although his speech has been affected and his left hand-side paralysed, he is able to do school work.

His intensive physiotherapy aims to help him walk again. For the first two days after the accident it was thought Ben might not survive. He was then in a coma for three-and-a-half weeks. But since then he has made remarkable progress.

Just weeks ago he could not speak, support his head or eat solid food and was not expected to come home until Christmas.

Leanne said one of Ben's driving forces to get better is his desire to get back in a boat.

Ben - who played football for Broadstone FC and has been powerboat racing for three years - was acting as a co-driver and navigator in the Royal Yacht Championships in Portland on June 19. Another boat went over the top of his, hitting his head.

He was first airlifted to Dorset County Hospital in Dorchester and later transferred to Southampton General Hospital, where he was until Friday.

First published: October 25