First day at school for crash survivor Jesse

Two years after being hit by a milk tanker on Greytown's Main Street, miracle boy survivor Jesse Eide has just started school.
Now living in Upper Hutt with his mother Wendy Eide, Jesse is just like any other bright-eyed child, avidly listening to stories read by his teacher at Upper Hutt's Birchville Primary, except for the fact he almost didn't live to make it to school age.
In 2003 the then 3-year-old Jesse ran out from a takeaway shop on to the road and into the path of a fully loaded milk tanker travelling at 50km/h.
He was hit and thrown into the path of on-coming traffic, but miraculously lived, with bumps and scratches the only immediate signs that anything had happened.
Two years on Jesse has had continued bad health, including a bout of pneumonia that put him in hospital as well as asthma and now epilepsy ? a delayed but direct result of the head injury he received on that evening in Greytown.
But every day Wendy Eide thinks how lucky she is to still have her son.
"I think about how things change when you have a near death experience with your child," she said.
"You're less casual. You look at their life as a gift; I'd take him anywhere."
Miss Eide credits the driver of the milk tanker as the reason her son is still alive today.
Another milk tanker was parked outside the takeaway shop at the time and the driver of the truck that hit Jesse drove past.
"The truck driver was looking out for his friend, so he was looking in that direction.
"He only had 6m in which to react, so I credit Jesse living to the truck driver being aware of what was happening."
Miss Eide said these days her son is a happy boy who, while sometimes serious, loves Hot Wheels and his kitten "Jack Dawson" and who dreams of flying jet planes when he grows up.
"He still has no fear of cars," she said. "I think he feels he's invincible because he survived; he had just turned 3 then and didn't have an ounce of fear, but he still doesn't."
For now the major hurdle for Jesse and his mum is to get to the bottom of his health problems so he can lead a life that's as normal as possible.
"It (the epilepsy) has been more stressful than the aftermath of the accident," Miss Eide said.
"He's also had non-stop chest infections, which I feel are a direct result of what happened."
But despite this she said Jesse is off to a good start, at a great school and being taught by an "awesome" teacher.
"My heart goes out to people whose children have died," Miss Eide said. "The accident is still not in the past for me, and whenever I think about it it's hard to get my head around, because there's no logical answer to how he could be hit by something so big and still live."