SEATTLE -- A 4-year-old boy burned while playing outside his Spokane home left Seattle's Harborview Medical Center Thursday after nearly four months of treatment for burns that covered more than half his body.

Alexander Brown and his now 5-year-old friend Brian Ashmore were taken to Harborview last June after the boys say they poured gasoline on a slide in Spokane and slid down.

Somehow, the gasoline ignited, critically burning them both.

As he left the hospital Thursday morning, Alexander wasn't shy about grabbing a microphone and praising the doctors and nurses who treated his injuries.

"They can make be better," he said. "They can let me go home."

Red skin now covers most of Brown's tiny body, but his doctor said the boy will make a full recovery.

"(He'll have an) absolutely normal life, should be able to do everything he wants to do," said David Heimbach. "He should be able to go to school and do all the things other kids do in school."

His mother worries that when the physical pain is gone, other pain will remain.

"My biggest thing is when he comes home from school, that people make fun of him," said Tara Brown.

Brown says she knows her son's spirit will see him through.

"Now, he's pretty much back to himself," she said.

Alexander still has a little trouble walking, but his doctor expects him to be running around again soon.

His playmate, Brian Ashmore, is still being treated at Harborview, but is expected to be released within a month.