With just a few walls separating them from their son, Connie and Jay Stidd sit in a small waiting room filled with support from friends, family and the Penn State community.

Support that Connie believes has kept her son going.

For more than a week, Connie Stidd said, there has been a revolving door of students and friends who have made space in the hospital corridors to give support to Aaron Stidd and his family. For 10 days, friends and family have eaten and slept in the waiting room as Aaron Stidd continues to receive treatment in the adult intensive care unit at Geisinger Medical Center.

"I personally in my heart feel that one of the reasons Aaron is still here is because of that love that generates through these walls," she said.

Aaron was badly injured Oct. 28 when he was struck by an alleged drunk driver while crossing Atherton Street near Beaver Avenue. He remains in critical but stable condition, his father said.

"That kid has fought so many battles," he said. "Some he's won and some he hasn't. But he's a fighter, he's a tough kid."

Jay Stidd said hospital nurses noted an "unparalleled miracle" in the hallways where Delta Upsilon fraternity brothers, Penn State students, childhood friends and complete strangers have camped out in support of Aaron Stidd and his family.

"We are trying to make it so that they spend as little time alone as possible," Steve Glaser (senior-industrial engineering) said. Glaser and his fellow Delta Upsilon fraternity brothers have been in and out of the hospital since the accident.

Jay Stidd said the support of Aaron's fraternity has shown him what a wonderful person Aaron was and what a wonderful community he is part of at Penn State.

"There has just been a fellowship here that you cannot describe," Jay Stidd said. "Only if you spent the eight days here would you see how deep it goes."

Literally camping out with sleeping bags, pillows and blankets, Aaron Stidd's fellow fraternity brothers have been there on and off since the afternoon after the accident, Jay Stidd said.

"What these kids have shared with me as we sat around in group circles and told Aaron stories at night, is that I have a wonderful son, but he has wonderful friends," he said.

Jay Stidd said he counted more than 50 people in the waiting area at one point, each signing a guest book before they leave.

The book is filled with entries telling of Stidd's inner strength, which friends said will get him through anything.

Connie Stidd opened the book to her favorite entry.

"It's the one I keep coming back to," she said.

The note, written by a student who admitted he was not best friends with Stidd, said Stidd was a good friend to anyone, no matter how well he knew them.

Jay Stidd said students from across the region, former classmates of Aaron's, former neighbors, fellow fraternity brothers and fellow students sit around and tell funny stories about Aaron.

"We don't sit out there by ourselves," he said. "Never we don't have a shoulder to cry on or someone reaching out their hand."

He said neighbors are calling to tell them the Stidd family mailbox in Huntingdon is "bent with weight" from get-well mail.

Food donated to the family overflows a table in the corner of the waiting room. Above it, Aaron's Delta Upsilon T-shirt hangs from the wall.

Glaser said about 90 percent of the fraternity brothers have come to visit the family.

"No one directed them here or told them to come," Jay Stidd said. "It is abundantly clear that every possible moment they can spend away from their academics they have been here."

Elementary school children from the school Aaron attended in Huntingdon sent the family homemade cards and money from a fundraiser.

The cards sit on a windowsill with a banner, guest books and get well football paraphernalia signed by Joe Paterno, Paul Posluszny and Levi Brown.