A FAMILY is convinced the power of prayer helped their son recover after he fractured his skull and spent 12 days fighting for his life.

Parishioners at two churches in Helmshore - St Thomas Musbury and St Veronica's - and friends of Neil and Ruth Yates in America and all over Europe prayed for their son Lewis to survive.

And now the lad, who will be three on June 6, is back home with his family and well on the road to recovery, hopefully with no lasting effects.

He was injured when he fell down stairs at a friend's house and hit a radiator.

His parents, of Heather Close, Helmshore, had been told to expect brain damage after surgeons at the Royal Manchester Children's Hospital, Pendlebury, operated for two hours to remove fragments of his fractured skull from his brain.

But although he has a slight limp and his speech has gone back about six months, they have now been told that with physiotherapy and speech therapy he should make a full recovery.

At a healing service at St Thomas's Church two days after Lewis's accident on Easter Monday, the vicar, the Rev Norman Price, led a prayer vigil.

Mr Price visited Lewis in the intensive care unit and prayed for him to recover. Then, on the Sunday, Neil and Ruth, who were married in the church nine years ago, and their daughter, Olivia, four, attended a service at St Thomas's.

A Bob the Builder figure the church had bought for Lewis was placed on the altar and everyone prayed for him.

The following Thursday he began to come round and Mr Price again visited him at his bedside and led more prayers.

Ruth, 33, said: "I think all the praying must have helped. I can't thank everyone enough for their thoughts and prayers. We have been really lucky."