A YOUNG boy who beat a potentially fatal illness has been given a brand new wheelchair after appearing in the Gazette.
Harrison Major, 7, was left struggling to walk after contracting meningococcal septicaemia at the end of 2011, which led to sclerosis of his hips.
The cheerful youngster, who has Down's syndrome, now needs to use a wheelchair to travel any distance, due to the damage the bacterial infection caused his hip joints.
His battle kept him in intensive care for four weeks at St Mary's Hospital in London.
However, after being told that Harrison could be on the NHS waiting list for a year before qualifying for a made-to-measure child's wheelchair and being unable to afford one themselves, his family decided to buy an adult chair for £90.
Unfortunately, the chair was unsuitable for Harrison, who attends Larchwood Primary School, and so following an appeal from the family in this newspaper, in stepped Brentwood-based charity Wipe Away Those Tears, which paid for a new £535 chair.
Mum Vicky, 33, said of Harrison: "He has real difficulty walking but we've been told his condition is likely to get progressively worse so I can't thank the charity enough.
"His old wheelchair was just too big and he was having difficulty pushing it around but this is much better."
Gail O'Shea, who has run the children's charity with husband Jason since 2006, said: "He's lovely and I'm just so happy we can do something to help.
"We have lots more funds to give away to help families in Brentwood."
In 2012 alone the charity, which raises around £150,000 each year through their annual ball, helped nine children by providing specialist equipment.
Harrison's most recent brush with serious illness is not his first. At the age of 12 weeks he had to undergo open heart surgery to rectify a defective heart that only had two chambers rather than four.
Dad Chris, 36, said: "The new chair is brilliant. We had a choice of colours but he wanted green because it reminded him of Buzz Lightyear, who he loves.
"Instead of struggling with his old chair, he now shoots off and is away head of us every time we go out."
