Fairground fall boy and sky-diver on mend

Two people who are lucky to be alive after horrific accidents are on the road to recovery.

Teenager Mark Evans, who broke his neck in a fairground fall, has returned home from hospital. And college principal Trevor Jones has been taken off the critical list after suffering multiple injuries in a parachuting accident.

Mark, 18, a landscape gardener, refuses to talk about the incident which happened at Thame Fair earlier this month.

"I just want to forget about the whole thing," he said at his home in Willow Road, Thame, yesterday.

His policeman father Gareth is trying to piece together exactly what happened before his son fell several feet from the fairground ride on to concrete.

And he has rubbished rumours that Mark, a former Lord Williams's School pupil, may have been drinking.

He said after the incident: "He was up the fair with friends, just like scores more Thame youngsters."

Mark was rushed to the John Radcliffe Hospital, Oxford, on the Thursday evening. On Monday, bone from his hip was grafted into his neck and he was home at the weekend. He said he is on the mend, but has no idea when he will be back at work.

The Shockwave ride was closed while police and health and safety executive officers investigated it. More investigations are due to take place.

It was reopened for the Friday and Saturday sessions.

Meanwhile dad-of-two Mr Jones, head of West Oxfordshire College, Witney, continues to improve at the John Radcliffe Hospital, Oxford, after his 100th sky-dive went wrong, on September 20.

His condition was critical for several days, but a hospital spokesman said he was 'stable' and had been taken out of intensive care.

Mr Jones suffered several broken bones and serious internal injuries in the accident, at RAF Weston-on-the-Green, near Bicester. College staff and students have wished him a speedy recovery.

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