North shooting victim makes 'miracle' recovery

Schoolboy Darragh Somers who survived a.22 bullet wound to the head left hospital today with a thumbs-up sign.

Schoolboy Darragh Somers who survived a .22 bullet wound to the head left hospital today with a thumbs-up sign.

Two months after being hit and left critically ill on a life support machine, Darragh, aged five, returned home to Enniskillen, Co Fermanagh.

Outside the Royal Belfast Hospital for Sick Children, his father, Gerald, said: “He's baffled everyone - the surgeons, the doctors, the nurses, his mum and dad, everyone.

“At the start we thought he might not make it, but there was another force at work. I cannot understand it. Its beyond my comprehension.”

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Darragh was accidentally shot in the head by a stray bullet as he played outside his school on April 22nd.

But even though police carried out ballistic tests on over 50 weapons which they seized from owners in the area, they have be unable to identify the hunter who police believe pulled the trigger while shooting vermin on adjoining fields.

More forensic tests are to be carried out on the rifles, all legally held by farmers and sportsmen in the area in a bid to trace the man who fired the shot.

PA