A 13-year-old boy somehow survived for three days trapped down a huge ravine following a skateboarding accident.

Rescue teams desperately searched for Dakota "Cody" Trenkle Jr after he became stuck down the 240ft ditch near his grandmother's home in Goose Creek Lake, Missouri. The teenager went without food or water for three days before a K-9 unit found him, and he was airlifted to hospital.

As Dakota was put into medically induced coma, his mother Stephanie Neely maintained a bedside vigil for nearly two weeks and, against all odds, the youngster pulled through yesterday - and is set to be removed off his ventilator. Stephanie, 29, said: "Yesterday I felt like we were in a good place."

Recalling the moment her sister found Dakota, an emotional Stephanie said: "I heard my sister go over the radio saying, 'We found him, we found him. He's alive.'... I broke down in the middle of the street, bawling hysterically, just trying to make my way down to where they had found him."

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Dakota, who survived dehydration during his ordeal, may soon be moved to a rehabilitation facility. He may require surgery but Stephanie, who has two other boys, says the picture looks far more hopeful than it did days ago.

Her son, the eldest of her brood, was by chance shaded by a large bush in the ravine. Stephanie, who works in a prison, continued: "He ended up landing underneath some pretty thick brush, which helped shade him from the sun during the heat warning.

"He was lying in five inches of water, which helped maintain his body temperature, and his body probably absorbed some of that water, even though he came in extremely dehydrated."

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The teen spent 11 days in the medically induced coma before waking up this week. He can speak, but speech patterns are delayed due to brain injuries, and he's experiencing short-term memory loss. His mum added: "I believe that it's going to be a long road of recovery with therapies.

"Even when he's done with inpatient, he's still going to have a lot of outpatient therapies with physical and occupational, but I believe at the end of that road, he can be mostly normal. We're just taking it day by day and hoping that he keeps making small progress in the right direction."

The family, who are from Potosi, Missouri, are now crowdfunding to help support Dakota's recovery. To support the GoFundMe appeal, you can donate using this link.