By NEAL WAGNER / City Editor

A 14-year-old Pelham High School student has been making steady improvements at Children’s Hospital in Birmingham since he was struck by a car while walking on Bearden Road on Aug. 18.

PHS freshman Tyler Lee was airlifted to the hospital after he was struck near the intersection of Bearden Road and Victory Trail shortly after 7 p.m. The accident occurred the same night as the school’s junior varsity football jamboree at Ned Bearden Stadium.

After Lee was transported to Children’s, he underwent surgery to repair a portion of his skull damaged in the collision. He also suffered several cuts and bruises in the accident.

According to Lee’s Caringbridge.org support page, he has been making steady improvements since he returned from the emergency surgery.

After spending several days in the Children’s intensive-care unit, Lee was scheduled to be moved to the rehabilitation floor of the hospital on Aug. 23, Lee’s mother, Hayden, wrote on the Caringbridge site.

Tyler Lee has also been speaking and communicating with doctors and family members who have surrounded him at the hospital since the accident.

“We said ‘Do you remember why you are here?’ and he said, “Yes. I was reborn so they could make sure I don’t do anything bad anymore,’” Hayden Lee wrote on the site. “(That) just melted my heart. I looked at Kenny and I said ‘God has spoken to our baby.’

“Tyler has always been such a good, sweet boy, but maybe God saw something coming that was going to put him in the wrong direction so he had to turn him around,” Hayden added. “I am a very strong believer and I have no doubt in my mind that God has some big plans.”

Since the accident, people from all over the country have been contacting the Lee family and offering donations and assistance, Hayden Lee said.

“I have been so overwhelmed by the love and support we have received from our friends, family, community and even strangers,” Hayden Lee wrote on the site.

The family is asking for anyone wanting to donate to make checks payable to the Tyler Lee Hope Fund and mail them to Tom Haney, 796 Meadow Lake Farms, Calera, AL, 35040.

After the accident, Pelham Mayor Don Murphy said the shoulders along the side of Bearden Road are heavily traveled by pedestrians, and said he is working to secure federal grants to install sidewalks along the side of the road.

“I have been working for the past two years to get federal stimulus money to put sidewalks on Bearden Road,” Murphy said during an Aug. 22 City Council meeting. “Hopefully, at some point we will get some money to put a sidewalk on that road so our kids will be safe.

“It doesn’t take a second for someone to look down and for someone to get hit by a car up there,” Murphy added.