A SUFFOLK mother today praised emergency services after an air ambulance landed on a tennis court to fly her child to Ipswich hospital.Jan Costain described the treatment her eight-year-old son received while he was drifting in and out of consciousness as "fantastic".

A SUFFOLK mother today praised emergency services after an air ambulance landed on a tennis court to fly her child to Ipswich hospital.

Jan Costain described the treatment her eight-year-old son received while he was drifting in and out of consciousness as "fantastic".

Theo was playing in a small swimming pool with two school friends at his home in Saint Helena, near Dunwich, when he hit his head on the side of the pool.

The three youngsters were jumping into the cool water when child minder Matthew Lincoln saw Theo fall backwards and bump the back of his head.

The 20-year-old rescued Theo from the pool at around 11.30am on Friday .

Mr Lincoln, from Westleton, said: "I was worried that he had knocked himself out. When I called his name he didn't respond so I jumped in and pulled him out. He started crying and then I knew that it wasn't really serious.

"But half an hour later Theo began feeling nauseous and kept being sick. He kept drifting in and out of consciousness.

Mrs Costain, 47, was working from home at the time and the first she knew of the accident was when she heard Theo crying in his bedroom complaining of a fuzzy head.

She said: "I phoned my husband, David, who is a doctor. He said that we should get him to hospital so I called an ambulance."

While they were waiting for the ambulance to arrive Mr Lincoln and Mrs Costain struggled to keep Theo awake. At first they kept talking to him, asking him questions and telling jokes, but later they had to shout at him to keep him conscious.

Mrs Costain said: "We were very, very scared as it looked like it was serious."

"About half an hour later a volunteer paramedic crew arrived and then to our amazement a helicopter appeared."

The air ambulance landed on the tennis court at the back of the family's converted barn.

Mrs Costain said: "We have the smallest tennis court you can have and they had their biggest helicopter so they were quite proud of themselves on the landing. They said it was the tightest one they had ever had.

"The paramedics moved the netting out of the way while the helicopter came into land. It all seemed to happen in a blur.

"They were absolutely fantastic and its incredibly reassuring that if something goes wrong the air ambulance are so brilliant."

The helicopter flew Theo to Ipswich hospital where he was still being sick on arrival.

Theo spent most of the Friday afternoon sleeping at the hospital but woke up at 6pm feeling hungry.

He was discharged an hour later and Mrs Costain described him as "completely and utterly fine" today.

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