'Stay strong and keep fighting': 12-year-old hit by car on Buffalo's West Side

Wyatt Lopez is a 12-year-old boy recovering at Oishei Children's Hospital in Buffalo after a car almost took his life. His mother, Regina Bowden, said Lopez was crossing Niagara Street around 3:30 p.m. Monday when a car hit him.

"I haven't really slept that much. Just looking at him makes me cry. The amount of pain that he's in, I wish I could take it from him," said Bowden. "So far he has two broken femurs and a broken pelvis. His right eye doesn't move to the right all the way, and they're still doing more tests."

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Bowden said her son was coming home from a local pool with his friends and little brother. Luckily, a nurse was in one of the cars and stabilized his neck until EMS arrived.

Buffalo Police arrested the 36-year-old driver and charged him with DWI.

"He did ask me once why didn't the driver slow down and stuff like that. Today, I think is when reality set in a little bit," said Bowden. "He's realizing how bad it is and what's going on with him."

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Bowden is a mother of seven and is working to make ends meet. A GoFundMe has been set up to help with Lopez's long recovery ahead.

"He'll be in the wheelchair for six to eight weeks and then he'll have to come back for about six months to a year," said Bowden. "He has four different specialists he'll have to see and we don't have a car. The bus doesn't come to the hospital, so it's going to be Ubers and that's going to be around $250 a week."

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You can find the GoFundMe online here .

"Stay strong and keep fighting," said Bowden. "Get there sooner than you think."