The young sur­vivor of a dev­as­tat­ing car ac­ci­dent has un­der­gone a trans­for­ma­tion that his fam­i­ly has de­scribed as noth­ing short of a mir­a­cle.

When rel­a­tives of D’vard Cum­mings saw the man­gled wreck­age that left him with head trau­ma and mul­ti­ple in­juries, they were con­vinced the boy with big dreams from Wa­ter­wheel Road, Diego Mar­tin, would nev­er bounce back.

The 23-year-old, who was on­ly dis­charged from the hos­pi­tal two weeks ago, is not on­ly de­fy­ing the odds now but is still bent on achiev­ing his goals de­spite his ma­jor set­back.

When Guardian Me­dia vis­it­ed the fam­i­ly yes­ter­day, Cum­mings was tak­ing small, painstak­ing steps, each slow stride inch­ing fur­ther along a wind­ing road to re­cov­ery.

His moth­er, Rhon­da, said on Au­gust 27, Cum­mings was in­volved in an ac­ci­dent along St Lu­cien Road, Diego Mar­tin, that left him crit­i­cal­ly in­jured.

“He suf­fered a con­tu­sion. They told us from that in­jury in par­tic­u­lar, we will be bring­ing home a ba­by. His di­aphragm was rup­tured, his lung was punc­tured on the left side, his arm bro­ken, bro­ken pelvis, bro­ken hand, his bow­els came up to his chest, they had to put it (back). He al­so broke his nose.”

Cum­mings has cred­it­ed prayers for her son’s sur­vival. She said many who saw the wreck­age and his body gave up all hope he would be able to per­se­vere.

She said life was nev­er a walk in the park for her D’vard, who was born pre­ma­ture­ly and lat­er forced to bat­tle against near-fa­tal bouts of pneu­mo­nia and dengue.

De­spite no mem­o­ry of the ac­ci­dent, D’vard still re­mem­bers his pas­sion.

“I like learn­ing stuff in gen­er­al about any­thing. As you would see trees around, I just like learn­ing about the trees and na­ture, I re­al like na­ture, Na­tion­al Ge­o­graph­ic, ma­jor in­spi­ra­tion - Sir David At­ten­bor­ough, that is the man him­self,” he told Guardian Me­dia.

The for­mer Diego Mar­tin North Sec­ondary School stu­dent, af­ter ob­tain­ing dis­tinc­tions at CSEC and CAPE ex­am­i­na­tions un­der chal­leng­ing cir­cum­stances, earned his bach­e­lor’s de­gree in En­vi­ron­men­tal Sci­ence and Bi­ol­o­gy this year.

While Cum­mings needs ur­gent phys­io­ther­a­py, he is re­mind­ing oth­ers to nev­er hang their heads no mat­ter how daunt­ing things may seem.

“Life is full of ob­sta­cles, there is no way to re­al­ly get rid of them, you have to work through them, it’s a dai­ly process.”

Any­one wish­ing to as­sist Cum­mings and his fam­i­ly can con­tact 306-4620 or vis­it his go fund me page https://www.go­fundme.com/f/dvards-fight-for-life.