Joshua ‘Joshy’ Schuetz: Eight-year-old boy in horror Bali quad bike crash wakes from coma in Perth hospital

A young Perth boy rushed home on a mercy flight after a horror quad bike crash in Bali has emerged from an induced coma — and given the thumbs up. Joshua “Joshy” Schuetz was in Ubud with his family for a soccer tournament with Cockburn Wolves when the nightmare unfolded a week ago. The eight-year-old was a pillion passenger on a bike being driven by his teenage brother and when it flipped and he was thrown into water, pinning him underneath the vehicle. Joshy had a fractured skull and bleeding on the brain, which needed emergency surgery to save his life. Family friend Bernice Ariasa announced on Wednesday that he had made “incredible progress” at Perth Children’s Hospital over the past two days. “Today, I am so happy and so proud to tell you all that yesterday they woke him and he was put on nasal oxygen, ventilator taken off completely,” she wrote on a GoFundMe page she has organised. “He has his own communication of Joshy style hand signals, the coolest being a thumbs up. “He struggles to talk due to all of the trauma of the various ventilators and tubes being put down his throat but he has asked what happened and they have told him, and he’s been asked who’s in his team photo and he can name them.” Ms Ariasa said that Joshy even remembered a hospital visit in Bali, which “just proves how important it is to talk to coma patients regardless of what stage they are in their journey”. “Joshy has a very long road to recovery but he is a fighter, he knows his mates are waiting for him on the pitch when he’s ready in his own time,” Ms Ariasa wrote. The fundraiser has a $150,000 target to help support Joshy’s care, which includes a $20,000 hospital bill. More than $125,550 has been raised. You can contribute to the fundraiser here.