DIEGO LEMAS IMPROVES

DENVER -- A 12-year-old boy who was run over by the rear tire of a school bus is improving but his left foot has been amputated, doctors said Thursday.
Diego Lemos also suffered injuries to his hip and broke his pelvis.
"It was the entire ring of the pelvis that was disrupted. And that’s kind of consistent with a large force kind of going over it," said Dr. John Schwappach with Swedish Hospital.

Diego underwent another surgery Tuesday but is doing remarkably well, his parents said.
“If somebody was telling me, 'I might have to take your leg away from you,' I’d freak out. I’d cry for days. And he was just concerned about being functional as a kid again," said Diego's father, Ken Lemos. “But I know he’s strong, way stronger than me. And I just have all the faith in the world that he’s going to come out stronger."
He will have to learn to walk with a prosthetic but he is resilient, his parents say.
"I have no doubts in my mind that he’s going to bounce back like the Diego that we all know," said Diego's mother, Tina Lemos.
“He’s my little Superman. And it’s hard to see him just…laid out,” Ken Lemos said.
He's shown remarkable courage, improving from being near death to serious condition, his parents said. He has also moved out of the pediatric intensive care unit.
Police said Diego was running alongside the right side of a school bus, pounding on it to stop, when the bus made a right turn and ran over part of his legs and mid-section last Friday.
"Kid’s bones tend to be plastic, meaning they bend before they break. And in his case, there was a lot of bending of the bones, but there was also some breaking of the bones," Schwappach said.

Ken and Tina Lemos talk about how their son, Diego, is recuperating. Diego was run over by a school bus last week.
Students who were on the bus witnessed what happened. Diego is a student at West Gate Elementary.
There's no indication the 56-year-old driver of the school bus, a Jeffco employee, ever saw or heard the boy, said Denver police Lt. Matt Murray.
The driver of the bus has worked for Jefferson County Public Schools for three years. According to Denver police, the driver has never had an accident.
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April 30, 2010: Jeffco Fifth-Grader Run Over By School Bus