TRENTON, New Jersey -- An 11-year-old Russian boy who was on tour in the United States with a youth choir is in a New Jersey hospital in a coma, after being hit by a car three days before Christmas.


Hospital officials and a member of the Russian consulate in New York were at a loss to explain why the choir and its adult chaperones left the country the morning after the accident, leaving the critically injured boy alone.


But holiday generosity by at least two anonymous benefactors will bring the boy's mother and sister from their home in Moscow to a hospital in Morristown to be with him. They are scheduled to arrive Thursday, a week after the accident.


Yevgeny Morazov was staying with the choir at the Parsippany Holiday Inn when he and another boy tried to run across a road on Dec. 22, according to Parsippany police Sergeant John McGee.


A car driven by an 18-year-old man tried to avoid the boy but hit the concrete median before striking Morazov and knocking him four meters in the air, police said.


Morazov underwent emergency surgery Friday night at Morristown Memorial Hospital to relieve brain swelling. He remained in a "light coma" on Tuesday, according to hospital spokeswoman Anne Coyne.


"He is in critical condition. He is a very sick little boy. Our hearts have really gone out to him and to his family, what with his parents being thousands of miles away," Coyne said.


Michael Silin, vice consul of the Russian consulate in New York, said he was "very surprised" to learn that the youth choir and its adult chaperones had left the country Friday morning without making provisions for the injured boy.


But if visas could be secured in time, the boy's mother, Svetlana Morazov, and his 9-year-old sister were to arrive Wednesday at John F. Kennedy Airport in New York, according to Coyne.


"We decided Friday night that the hospital would absorb any cost related to bringing the family here," Coyne said.


Subsequently, a community member promised to cover the airline tickets and a second pledged cash for other costs, Coyne said.


Also, a host of Russian-speaking families have volunteered to sit with the boy and to put up his mother and sister when they arrive.


The choir group was registered at the Holiday Inn under Mantovani Productions, according to police, who did not know the choir's name, how long it had been in the country or where it had toured.


Silin said such touring groups arrive daily and need not register with the consulate.


"We don't know anything about this group," Silin said. "The leader of the group must inform us of such a situation. It is a very unusual case."