Ruhul Chowdhury says he wants to “thank the city that saved” his son. On a Sunday afternoon last month, 4-year-old Radiul (Radi) Chowdhury was playing outside when he stepped onto Victoria Park Ave. and was hit by the driver of a motorcycle, the boy’s father said. “He thought I was in the car next to our driveway when he was playing,” he said. The doctors at Sick Kids hospital weren’t sure Radi would make it through the night, Ruhul Chowdhury said. The crash had left his son paralyzed and in a coma. At one point that night, police even reported the child had died. The doctors still don’t know the extent of any long-term damage to Radi’s brain, Chowdhury told the Star, but in the two weeks since he was hit, the child’s condition has improved to the point he is now trying to open his eyes and move his legs and his feet. For that, Chowdhury credits an outpouring of support and prayer — his own and that of hundreds of strangers. “Getting told that your child isn’t alive, it’s just the worst feeling in the world,” Chowdhury recalled. “After hearing that, all we did was pray — all I had then was my Allah.”After arriving in Canada from Bangladesh in 2006, Chowdhury spent a month in Montreal before moving to Toronto for good. He’s lived here ever since but, he said, it didn’t truly feel like home until he felt the city come together for his son.Radi was hit during the Muslim holy month of Ramadan, and many across the city reached out to the family after hearing about the boy’s condition in prayer services, Chowdhury said. “In every single mosque, in every part of the city, people messaged us and showed us how they were praying for Radi — people who don’t even know us,” and not just Muslims, he said.Those first few days were the hardest for the family; Chowdhury’s wife, Sibratul, had to go to the hospital after feeling weak ...
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