Hague boy, 6, discharged from hospital 2.5 weeks after hit-and-run

A 6-year-old boy critically injured in a hit-and-run accident in The Hague earlier this month was discharged from the hospital 2.5 weeks after the incident. Naoufal has been back at home with his family for a week now and is doing well, his cousin Tarik told RTL Nieuws. “He is recovering faster than expected. It is extraordinary.”

Naoufel and his family were crossing Loosduinseweg in The Hague at the pedestrian crossing on October 3 when a car hit the boy and fled the scene. The boy was left with a broken neck, a ruptured spleen and kidney, and a damaged lung. He spent 2.5 weeks in the hospital, a lot of that time in intensive care, before being discharged last week Friday.

“We are thrilled. And he is too. He likes to be in his own environment again, with his own family,” Tarik told RTL a week later.

Naoufel is not back to his old self yet, and it is not certain that he will fully recover. “An MRI scan showed that he suffered brain damage. We don’t know what he is left with,” Tarik said. But the family is hopeful. “He is doing well. He is talking again. His motor skills are also completely normal again. He still has to rehabilitate, especially his memory.”

The man who hit Naourel with his car turned himself in a few days after the accident. He will be prosecuted but can await his trial in freedom. He told the authorities that he panicked and fled the scene of the accident.