Callum 3, is a boy of steel

2005

A BOY of three has been saved from a fatal spine condition - by becoming the youngest person in Britain to have a titanium rib.

Callum Read was born with four missing ribs, fused vertebrae, and a spine twisted and bent into an S-shape.

It meant he was unable to crawl in a line or sit up straight and had to pick up toys with his feet.

But now he can run around like any other tot - thanks to a seven-hour op to fit the expanding vertical rib, which is attached to his spine.

Mum Lucie, 40, said: "I can't believe it, it's a dream come true. He's so brave, we're very proud of him."

Lucie and husband Pete, 48, a backstage theatre worker, had been trying for a baby for five years when Callum was conceived by IVF.

But at Lucie's pregnancy scan. Callum was diagnosed with the rare condition congenital scoliosis. He also had two holes in his heart.

Shop assistant Lucie, from Birmingham, said "I was devastated, the doctors weren't even sure if Callum would survive the birth. Hi spine wasn't giving his lungs enough room to inflate.

Thankfully Callum's heart managed to heal itself and he was born by Caesarean.

Lucie said "He was taken to special care and when I finally held him his breathing was laboured and rattly".

Doctors explained that as Callum grew, his heart and lungs would be compressed by his twisted rib cage. He would find it difficult to breathe and even to walk.

His right side was concave where the ribs were missing. And his compressed lung meant he couldn't swallow and was fed through a tube.

Surgeons at Birmingham Children's Hospital took bone from a rib and put it between the fused vertebrae.

He was also fitted with a plaster cast brace for ten weeks as he could not sit up. Lucie said "I hoped Callum would improve but when they took off his cast he was like a floppy bunny again".

Two days before his second birthday Callum had the vertical titanium rib fitted.

Lucie says "The op was so worrying. But the difference was amazing".

Even lying in his hospital bed I could see his shoulder had dropped and he was straighter, when he was able to run around unsupported it was amazing.