Just days ago, Orell Reyes was sprinting across a football field. Today, the 16-year-old from Pomona Village now lies bedridden, paralysed from the waist down, with a bullet still lodged in his back.
Reyes had just left football practice on 2 June when gunmen on a motorcycle ambushed him and his cousins. He woke up in hospital unable to feel anything below his waist. “From my waist to my foot, dead, dead, dead, pops. I can’t feel nothing,” he told News 5.
Doctors say the bullet cannot be safely removed in Belize. His only hope is specialised treatment in Mérida, Mexico, but his family cannot afford it.
“I just want a little help to go outside so they can take out this bullet out of my back. I tired of laying on my back,” Reyes added.
Police have not established a motive. Reyes was not believed to be the intended target.
Tonight on News 5 Live at 6 o’clock, hear from Reyes and his mother, Kimberly Estero, as they face this life-changing reality.
