"Mum, I don't want to die": Schoolboy left with life-changing injuries following hit-and-run

A schoolboy has been left with an above-the-knee amputation following a hit-and-run while cycling home. Zach Michaels, 15, was riding his bike home from his grandmother's house on December 22, 2024, when a speeding car "mowed him over."

Despite being on a residential street, his mother, Maria Michaels, 43, claims the car was travelling at 70 miles per hour, leaving Zach in a "heap" on the ground.

The teenager will spend the next year in rehabilitation after sustaining open fractures, a punctured lung, and an above-the-knee amputation on his right leg. Maria, a nurse from Kirby, Merseyside, said: "Zach is an amazingly brave boy."

“It’s going to be a really, really long time before he’ll be discharged from hospital. He’s got his amputation wound which will need healing, his fractures and tendons need to heal. I can’t even think that far ahead, right now.”

On December 22, Zach had left his gran, Irene Martin, 70, and began the short journey back to his mum's house.

Shortly after setting off, while cycling down a school lane, he was hit by a speeding car. Local residents heard the impact and rushed to provide blankets and assistance, as well as calling emergency services.

“They alerted my mum, who told me and my partner,” Maria said.

“We got in the car and drove down - by the time we got there, the police had already arrived.

“Zach’s body was just contorted; the shape he’d been left in didn’t look normal.

“He was fully conscious the whole time, and he just kept saying: ‘Mum, mum, I don’t want to die.’

“Paramedics had to stabilise him in the middle of the road, because it was the safest thing to do - he had bones protruding from his body.”

Once Zach was stabilised, he was rushed to Alder Hey Children’s Hospital, Liverpool,