FILE: Ambulance stock photo.
Randy Faris/Getty Images
An 8-year-old boy who was hit by a stray bullet during a shooting on an Oakland freeway in July is completely paralyzed below the neck, his family said in a campaign posted on GoFundMe.
“We are profoundly relieved that our boy is alive and very much himself, and we are also starting to understand the vast implications of his new reality,” the family said in the post. “Moving forward, Asa will require a mechanical respirator to live, tube feeds for nutrition, and 24-hour, around-the-clock nursing care.”
Asa was riding in the back seat of his family’s car just after 6 p.m. on July 14 when occupants of two vehicles traveling east on Interstate 580 near Harrison Street fired shots at one another, the California Highway Patrol said.
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The boy was caught in the crossfire of the gun battle and hit by a bullet that was fired by an individual in one of the cars, CHP said. “Bullet and bone fragments pierced (and some lodged in) the spinal column of his neck. Initially, we had no idea if our sweet boy would live,” the family said.
Asa’s family pulled over to the right shoulder of the freeway near the Grand Avenue exit, and the boy was rushed to the hospital in “grave condition,” CHP said. He was initially treated at Highland Hospital and was later transferred to UCSF Benioff Children’s Hospital Oakland.
No arrests have been made, CHP officer Andrew Barclay told SFGATE. The shooting continues to be under investigation.
The Bay Area has seen several children injured and killed in freeway shootings in recent years. Earlier this year, 5-year-old Eliyanah was killed on Interstate 880 in Fremont as her family was driving to a birthday dinner in Milpitas. In 2021, Jasper Wu, a 23-month-old boy, was killed by a stray bullet while riding in his family car on I-880 in Oakland.
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Barclay said that year-to-date freeway shootings in California are down 17% compared with this time last year. He could not comment on whether shootings are down or up specifically in the Bay Area, but he did say the majority of Bay Area shootings occur in Alameda County.
“We know the majority of these incidents are targeted violence or road rage,” he said.