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When 3-year-old Darnal Mundy II grabbed a gun in his
home and accidentally shot himself in the head, his parents
thought he wouldn't survive. However, after weeks of
intensive therapy, Darnal is now talking, walking and
slowly regaining control of the right side of his body.
The small wheelchair that holds his body and the scars on
his head and face are constant reminders of the morning he
nearly lost his life.
"One nurse said she's worked at the hospital for 18 years and
has hardly seen children ever survive a gunshot wound to the
head," said Dorphise Jean, Darnal's mother.
Jean still vividly remembers the horror of August 4, 2015.
She was startled out of sleep by the sound of a gunshot
inside her bedroom.
She narrated:
"What I heard was a bang and I didn't feel him under
me,". "So I already automatically know it was him."
Somehow Darnal had gotten out of his parents' bed,
climbed a chair in front of his dad's dresser, opened the top
drawer, grabbed a gun and shot himself in the face.
"I just saw him laying on the ground, and then his dad
jumped out of bed, and I just kept saying, 'My baby,
my baby'," recalled Jean. Darnal's father placed his
hand on the back of his son's head
, applying pressure.
"I didn't know where the bullet went through," said
Jean. She grabbed her cell phone and keys and drove
as fast as she could to Holtz Children's Hospital while
Darnal's father held the boy.
"My son was crying. Throughout the whole
experience he was crying," said Jean. "I just kept
talking to him while driving."
Dr. Sarah Jernigan, a University of Miami pediatric
neurosurgeon at Holtz who operated on Darnal said:
"He had a gunshot wound to the center of his head and
the bullet had exited in the back left side,". "His CAT
scan showed a large blood clot and swelling in the
brain."
Doctors surgically removed the left side of Darnal's skull
to allow for swelling and to protect the part of the brain
that was untouched by the bullet.
"When I walked out of surgery and talked to his mom,
I was able to tell his mom and dad that he was alive,
but I wasn't sure what kind of recovery he would
make," said Jernigan.
Jean said the doctors warned her things would get worse
before they got better. And they did. Darnal spent three
weeks in a coma, and when he woke up, he was barely
responsive.
"He was not able to talk, he was not walking. He
wasn't even able to sit up by himself," said Dr. Seema
Khurana, director of pediatric rehabilitation at
Jackson Rehabilitation Hospital where Darnal was
transferred three weeks after the shooting. "He was
basically being fed by a tube and he had a
(tracheotomy) in place."
At the rehabilitation hospital, Darnal received at least
three hours of therapy every day and learned how to
breathe on his own again and slowly started talking and
walking, despite having weakness on the right side of his
body. His feeding tube has also been removed. His progress
seems like a miracle.
"It is very unusual, but like we all say, that's why we
love working with little kids, because the amount of
recovery that they have -- nobody else has that type
of recovery," said Khurana.
This week, after more than three months after the shooting,
Darnal is going home. Jean said they still keep a gun in
the house for personal protection, but they're making sure it
is locked up in a safe, out of Darnal's reach.
Darnal will be celebrating his 4th birthday on Saturday
and the doctors who are helping Darnal heal have high
hopes for his future.
"He's going to continue to make progress and ... he's
going to be something very important in life because he's
here with us today," said Khurana.
Source: CNN
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