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On a sunny Monday in August 2010, after attending a family reunion in Cleveland, Susan Slattery started home for Baltimore with her two sons.

Bouch’s rig barely slowed before ramming Slattery’s Focus into another semi-truck, careening into five more vehicles and bursting into flames, according the police report.

Matthew was near death, his skull crushed. Bouch escaped unhurt.

Matthew, a voracious reader who scored in the top 1 or 2 percent on school tests, had a traumatic brain injury. He lost more than half his blood, and his jaw was broken in two spots.

With Matthew’s brain swelling, surgeons had to remove a large section of his skull. They placed an artificial membrane in its place.

Matthew was in a medically induced coma with no motor, verbal or eye response. Weeks later, he moved his left index finger for the first time.

A month after the accident, Matthew was flown to Johns Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore, where he remained for a week before he was transferred to Kennedy Krieger Institute, a pediatric rehabilitation facility. Therapists there worked on him for months, massaging the inside of his gums and moving his feet in an attempt to restore function.

Gradually, Matthew responded. He delighted in videos of comedian and ventriloquist Jeff Dunham.