A Bradford teenager who narrowly escaped being crushed to death has been allowed home from hospital.

And today his mum told how he she feared he would never regain consciousness after shelves laden with legal files crashed on top of him.

Heather Oxley feared for 17-year-old Lee's life when he was knocked to the ground and trapped by shelving in his company's city centre storeroom.

Pinned down by his upper body and head, colleagues and shopworkers rushed to free him, but he was taken to Bradford Royal Infirmary fighting for breath and with a weak pulse.

Doctors fought to resuscitate him and he spent two days in intensive care with Heather fearing he had a broken neck.

But miraculously Lee escaped without any broken bones and is now back at his Barkerend home having regained consciousness on Saturday - Heather's birthday.

Heather said the accident had been like a bad dream and that, at one point, she thought she had lost him.

She said: "His work phoned me up and said he'd had an accident. When they said there were fire engines and ambulances there, I just went to pieces.

"On the night, he was in the resuscitation room and I honestly believed he wasn't with us. He never regained consciousness - they thought he'd gone without oxygen for 15 minutes.

"When he woke up, it was the best birthday present I could ever have had."

Lee, an office junior at Ivegate solicitors Kenningham, Underwood and Armstrong, had gone to the store room on Maunday Thursday above the Mashed pub to retrieve files with a colleague.

After the timber construction collapsed, staff members and nearby shopworkers pushed the files from the shelves to relieve the pressure. He was put in the recovery position until fire and ambulance crews arrived.

Heather said: "I just want to thank everybody who helped him. I've been to the fire brigade and taken a thank you letter, but it's other people I want to thank - everybody in the shops and from the street who I don't know and people from his work. If they hadn't acted so fast, Lee would not be here now."

Lee iss suffering short term memory loss which prevented him remembering anything about the accident. She said: "His bruises are going and he has a bit of difficulty breathing, but if you look at him now, he's a picture of health. He doesn't really realise that anything happened because he keeps forgetting things. It's very frustrating for him."

A spokesman from Bradford Council Environmental Health today confirmed that an investigation into the incident was underway.