A FIVE-YEAR-OLD boy from Newport could lose the use of his fingers after they were almost severed after picking up a dumped coil of metal.

Connor Baker from Duffryn, had to be operated on in Morriston Hospital in Swansea by a specialist surgeon after a coil of metal cut through fingers on his right hand.

Mother-of-five Joanne Baker, 41 says that doctors do not knowwhether his two middle fingers will fully heal, or when he will be able to go back to school.

Mrs Baker said the accident happened on May 27 when she was walking back from a friend’s house on Chaffinch Way, Duffryn, with Connor and his six-year- old brother Callum to her home on the same cul-de-sac.

She said Connor found the piece of metal on a roundabout on the road and tugged at it.

The next thing they knew Connor was screaming, with his hand clamped shut and bleeding from both sides.

A neighbour took Connor to the Royal Gwent Hospital, where it emerged the metal tore through the ligaments in his middle two fingers, and the artery in his middle finger.

Connor stayed in the Gwent for the night and was taken for specialist surgery at Swansea’s Morriston hospital the next day to have his fingers put back together under general anaesthetic.

Doctors, who said he was lucky not to have lost his middle finger, are hoping that Connor will make a full recovery but have told Mrs Baker that they are unsure of when he will get the use back of his two fingers, if at all.

For the moment Connor, who is a pupil at Duffryn Infant School, has cast on his arm to stop him from moving his hand while it heals.

“Connor is very frustrated. He can’t play like he used to. He can’t dress himself. It’s taken away his independence,” Mrs Baker said.

“Connor likes to do everything himself.”

Mrs Baker believes that the coil of metal Connor picked up may be of the kind used to wrap around copper piping.

There have been a spate of copper thefts in Newport over the last year and Mrs Baker thinks that the metal may have been left by thieves.

Joanne Short, livelihoods worker for Duffryn Community Link and who works with Connor at Duffryn Infants, urged vigilance on the estate.

She said: “We need to urge people in the community to be extra vigilant and report any incidents of people attempt to steal copper or fly tipping, and hopefully prevent this happening to any other children.”