Matthew Pepper, the 7-year-old boy injured when a microburst blew down tents during the Huntsville International Airport airshow Sunday, was released from Huntsville Hospital Wednesday.

Matthew’s father, Lemual Pepper, said his son was “talking all the way home from the hospital.”

Matthew sustained a fractured skull in the accident, but Pepper said his son is expected to make a full recovery.

The same microburst, at 2:05 p.m. Sunday, pulled over a tent in which 5-year-old Aaron “Josiah” Miller and his parents, Jason and Amie Miller of Madison, took shelter. Josiah died when a 5,000-pound air-conditioning unit blew over and fell on him. The funeral for Josiah, who would have started kindergarten at Creekside Elementary School in the fall, was Wednesday.

Matthew will be a third grader at Creekside in the fall, but the two families didn’t know each other.

“He’s doing a lot better now but he still has to take it easy,” Pepper said of his son. “Sunday and Monday were rough; Tuesday he began to come out of it; and today he is talking and eating, and that is a great plus.”

Pepper said his family, including his wife, Chandler, and a 16-year-old daughter, Jessica, were watching the airshow when announcers told the crowd the show would cease temporarily until a sudden shower was over.

“We were just sitting down in the tent and we saw the storm coming through a clear curtain on the west side,” Pepper said. “Our chairs were all lined up beside the curtain and then the curtain began to blow in and it caught my feet and the feet of my daughter and her friend and flipped us over on our backs.

“We got up and my daughter said, ‘Where’s Matthew?’ We were all in a pile under the tent but Matthew was not there. I couldn’t believe how he could have gotten out of there. But he has a rope burn on his upper leg, just about to the underwear line. The rope came up and, in one or two seconds, the tent was gone and Matthew with it.”

A witness said he saw the child flying “about 15 feet in the air” before he crashed down on his head on the asphalt, Pepper said. He was looking frantically for his son and then heard a child cry – “not hysterical or anything, but I knew it was Matthew.” By the time Pepper reached his son, four people had gathered around him.

“The responders were really quick,” Pepper said. “He had this great big goose egg on the back of his head. From the lower part of his skull to the top is a crack. For him to crack his skull without having a brain hemorrhage was a miracle.”

Pepper said responders immobilized Matthew’s head and neck in a brace and loaded him into an ambulance.

“The doctors said that in three months he should be healed but it will be 12 months until he is completely healed,” Pepper said. “He has to stay away from some of the things he does, like skateboards and his bicycle, because if he hits his head again it could cause a relapse. We’ll really have to watch him.”

Pepper said Matthew is happy to be home and he told his parents it seemed like he had been in the hospital “for 10 days.”

“When the doctor talked to us, he was real upbeat,” Pepper said. “He said Matthew was very lucky and should make it through it with no problems in the future.”

Pepper said his family’s thoughts and prayers have been with the Millers since learning their son did not survive.

“I just can’t imagine what those people are going through,” he said. “Matthew said when he found out about Josiah, ‘Do you think when it’s your time to go God steps in to help you?’ That was deep for a little kid. He was very lucky. Very lucky.”