Stars shine to honour baby who defied odds

A-LISTER football club owners Ryan Reynolds and Rob McElhenney have donated £10,000 to a Greater Manchester hospital in honour of an amazing baby boy.

- HELENA VESTY

Wrexham AFC player James Jones, and his partner, Chloe, experienced the fear many parents go through of their son, Jude, being born 15 weeks prematurely in November 2022 and spending 122 days in hospital.

Now, the couple are raising thousands of pounds for Royal Bolton Hospital's Neonatal Intensive Care Unit (NICU) to say thank you to the neonatal nurses who provided life-saving care for their little boy.

Jude weighed just 1lb4oz, and because he was so poorly, he needed a transfer to Bolton within hours of being born at Wrexham Maelor Hospital. There nightmarish moments, say the couple, and they believed their 'tiny fragile baby' would not survive.

"There nothing more terrifying than seeing a room full of nurses and doctors run over to is your baby without hesitation, to try and save their life," the couple explained.

But today, with a happy little boy, they are thanking the staff made sure the family made it back home as a trio - and their Go Fund Me has received a generous £10,000 boost from Hollywood star and Wrexham AFC owner, Ryan Reynolds, and his co-owner, Rob McElhenney.

Writing on Go Fund Me, Chloe said: "James and I would sit next to his incubator for hours on end, every day, looking at our tiny fragile baby and all the numbers on his monitor, praying that he would survive. At times, we believed he wouldn't.