BOISE -- Five-year-old Maximo Wyatt is finally back home in Idaho - just in time for Christmas.
Maximo spent more than 70 days in a Salt Lake City hospital fighting for his life after being hit by a minivan and dragged some 40 feet while riding his bike home from school with his dad.
They were at the four-way stop intersection at South Owyhee Street and West Kootenai Street in Boise when a minivan came out of nowhere. Maximo's dad remembers everything.
"I remember being in the crosswalk, Max was almost across. And a car started to approach us," said Joe Wyatt, Maximo's dad. "We were in the crosswalk and it just blew me away that the driver was just proceeding across the intersection and we were in the crosswalk right in front of her. So I yelled at her and she just stomped on the accelerator and just took Max right in front of me. And to my horror didn't stop, continued to take him. It's like he disappeared, it's like he got swallowed, he just went away, like the van just took him. And the next thing I knew she's high-centered on Max. On a curb and the van's rocking back and forth with the accelerator to the floor, on Max, on his body."
Bystanders lifted the van up off Maximo's crushed body.
"I pulled him out by his arm. His chest was deformed. It was pushed all the way over to the left. And I did chest compressions on him and his chest popped back and I could just feel his heart just start beating so fast and he started breathing," said Joe Wyatt.
But the next two weeks would be touch and go, Joe and Courtney not knowing if their little boy would survive.
"His doctor came out with tears in his eyes and I said, "Is he going to live?' And he said, 'It's in God's hands.' It's in God's hands now and it was," said Joe.
Maximo's lungs weren't working. His chest was crushed. He had a broken pelvis, femur and calf bones. And burns from being pinned under the van's engine block.
Maximo endured 13 surgeries, and skin grafts now cover much of his body.
Maximo has no memory of the accident. He doesn't remember being hit. But because of the severity of the injuries, it is something he will live with forever.
But this little boy with a big will to live is a fighter with plans to get back on his bike and ride again.
"I want a Hot Wheels bike. It can go faster than anything in the world!" exclaimed Maximo.
His will to live has inspired a movement to increase bicycle safety and awareness. It's called "The Max" campaign. It started with the idea of making bracelets out of old bicycle spokes to show support for Maximo.
Now there's an effort under way to make a statewide change.
"We wanted to make sure that while Max was fighting for his health and his family was struggling down there in Salt Lake City, that we were doing everything we could back in Boise possible to make the streets safer for him when he returned and safer for all the kids and families in Idaho," said Jimmy Hallyburton, founder and executive director of the Boise Bicycle Project.
The idea is to make it mandatory that at least one bicycle safety and awareness question is asked on the Idaho drivers license test. Hallyburton says he believes that if applicants know a bicycle question will be asked, they will study the topic more and therefore gain more knowledge of how to share the road, and drivers education teachers more likely to discuss the issue in class. He believes both parties, drivers and bicyclists, will benefit from the added education of knowing how to properly share the road.
"To us this really could be a pretty simple change where it's not taking a lot of money, it's just taking support, and it's taking an idea that's not really putting the blame on one party or another, it's really kind of addressing both sides," said Hallyburton.
He's taken the idea to Gov. Butch Otter, the Idaho Transportation Department and the Department of Education.
"This isn't just something that the Boise Bicycle Project wants or Max's family wants. This is something that the community is reaching out for saying we want our streets to be safe for our kids," said Hallyburton.
Idaho's streets safer so that no child, or adult, has to endure what Maximo has and will have to for years to come.
"If something good can come out of this tragedy, that's good, that's great. That's more than we could hope for," said Joe Wyatt.
KTVB asked Otter for his thoughts on The Max campaign. A statement from his office says, "Anything we can do to increase safety is important and something we should be doing." Otter has asked ITD to look into the awareness ideas and get back to him.
The driver who hit Maximo was cited this week for inattentive driving.
