Nana Effah Donkor, a 16-year-old promising basketball player from Brooklyn, was left paralyzed after a stray bullet struck him during a shooting. His mother expressed hope for his recovery after he began feeling sensation in his feet following surgery.
Nana Effah Donkor, a junior on the Far Rockaway Seahorses basketball team, was outside a bus stop in Midwood, Brooklyn, on Sunday after attending a basketball tournament when the incident occurred. He was with a friend when a fellow churchgoer greeted him briefly. Moments later, three teens approached and opened fire, targeting the acquaintance whom police sources believe is a gangbanger.
"Yo, that’s him!" Donkor recalled one of the shooters saying from his hospital bed. "They were talking about the guy next to me and I took off. They weren’t talking about me because I didn’t know them."
Donkor ran for cover but felt pain and fell on Avenue J and East 16th Street, where the bullet lodged in his spinal cord, leaving him paralyzed. His mother, Danielle Boakye, arrived at the hospital to grim news. "The first day he got shot, I came and the report wasn’t good," she said in a phone interview. "The bullet went straight to his spinal cord. He wasn’t feeling his legs. They were cold."
Donkor underwent surgery, but doctors advised against removing the bullet to avoid further damage. Soon after, he began experiencing sensation in his feet, giving his family renewed hope. "That’s why I say I have hope," Boakye added. "I hope he will walk again, it’s just a matter of time."
Boakye described her son as a hardworking student who excels both on the court and in his studies. Donkor knew little about the intended target beyond attending the same church. "I go to church with him. That’s all I know about him," he said.
Boakye condemned the senseless violence affecting teens in New York City. "They should stop," she said. "If I had the power…children wouldn’t have access to guns."
As of Wednesday, the suspects remained at large.