Help Save a Brave 13-Year-Old's Life

On January 12, 2025 at 4:50pm my family’s life changed forever! My 13 year old son & his best friend were walking back home from bringing dinner to my job just like any other typical evening that I worked. Except this time, it was anything but typical. As the boys were walking back to our house they were about 5 houses away from ours when a car full of known gang members opened fire on my son & his friend with an AK-47 assault rifle. Luckily when they heard the first 2 shots ring out they dropped to the ground & attempted to army crawl their way to safety when they heard the shots ring out. The first 2 bullets missed their heads by mere inches, the third bullet pierced the home they were walking in front of; however, the 4th bullet hit my son in his back right hip. Luckily, with his friends quick thinking, he took his winter hat off placed it in the bullet wound, applied pressure to the wound & called 911 along with multiple other neighbors as well.

Upon my arrival at the scene I saw my 13 yr old son lying lifeless & unconscience on the ground with the bullet wound exposed while he was being treated & loaded onto a stretcher by our local fire & EMS teams. Due to my his extreme life threatening injury I was unable to ride along in the ambulance as he was rushed to our local hospital where he was immediately taken into emergency surgery as he had bled out completely due to internal bleeding caused from the bullet as it had hit one of his main arteries in his stomach. Thank goodness for the surgeon that was on call that evening , due to his quick thinking he was able to save my son’s life. By the time his first surgery was complete (3 1/2 hours) he had already received 8 units of blood as well as 3 units of plasma as the bullet had pierced a portion of his small intestine & had hit a main artery… Therefore, the surgeon had to remove a few inches of his small intestine.

When the surgery was complete the surgeon came out & told me that my son would need to be airlifted to the Children’s Hospital as they had the trauma unit level needed to ensure my sons life could be saved. & that he had been placed in a medically induced coma as well as being medically paralyzed. As we prepared for the helicopter ride the pilot explained what would happen & he would notify me when they landed… That 30 minute flight felt like the LONGEST 30 minutes of my life as a mother. My son landed at the Children’s Hospital where LifeLine notified me that my son has lost additional blood & had to have another unit of blood during the short flight. Little did we know that this would be one of many, many life saving surgeries.

When we arrived at the Children’s Happital later that night they advised that my son had been placed on life support due to the extensive amount of injuries that had occurred to his little body as he only weighed 87 pounds at the time of the accident. The bullet that hit him in his back right hip not only fractured both his hips, pierced his small intestine, fractured his pelvic bone & completely obliterated his left ureter, along with some damage to his liver.

His first 3 surgeries were successful; however, he ended up with some complications where another artery in his stomach started internally bleeding again & required 2 more additional surgeries to stop the internal bleeding as well as some of bladder & kidney complications.

Just when we thought we were out of the woods & headed in the right directions we encountered additional internal bleeding yet again requiring another emergency surgery.

My son has had 7 emergency surgeries in 6 days, 18 units of blood & 6 units of plasma as his body was not allowing the blood to clot properly.

Fast forward 10 days later we’re just now able to be moved from the Pediatric ICU to a regular PEDS floor, yet somehow we still weren’t in the clear as we’ve had to have another surgery to stop the internal bleeding & we had to have a external drain from his kidney as it was leaking urine into his body.

At this time, the doctors nor surgeons have an estimated time of when we will be released from the Children’s hospital as my son will need intensive physical therapy to learn to re-walk & live a normal day to day life!