A small gesture of support by the friend of a schoolboy left severely brain damaged after a holiday swimming pool accident has captured the imaginations of hundreds of people.
Eight-year-old Caitlin Wolstenholme made a bracelet to show she was thinking of Callum Wingate after the seven-year-old, from Belle Isle, almost drowned on a break with his family in Majorca last month.
But she and her mum, Yvonne, and sister Calia, four, have since had to manufacture more than 400 of the trinkets – dubbed Callum Hope bracelets – to meet the demand of others wanting to show their support.
Proceeds from sales of the £1 bracelets are going to Callum’s parents, Lorraine Siddle and Robert Wingate, while they take time off work to maintain a vigil at his bedside at Leeds General Infirmary.
Child minder Yvonne, 41, from Belle Isle, said: “While I was wearing mine, I wondered if anyone else would wear one with pride.
“We made 50 and I took them to playgroup. Within ten minutes they’d gone. We’ve made 400 in two weeks. It’s hard to keep up.”
As reported in Friday’s YEP Callum slipped unnoticed into the 2.5m-deep pool at the Playa Blanca hotel in the S’illot resort on July 29.
He lay at the bottom for several minutes before his lifeless body was seen. He had no pulse for about half an hour before paramedics revived him.
The youngster has defied doctors who thought he would not survive, but is likely to have long-term brain damage.
Yvonne, who met fellow child minder Lorraine about three years ago, said: “As a mum, you can’t imagine what it must be like to go through what they are going through.
“This is the least we can do.”
Since setting up a Facebook page devoted to Callum, she has had enquiries from people as far afield as Surrey and even Spain wanting to buy bracelets.
“We just want to do something to give them a bit of hope,” she said.
Lorraine said: “The support we have had from everyone has been absolutely amazing.”
To request a bracelet, visit: www.facebook.com/callumhopebracelets
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