A 14-year-old boy from Jennings is in the ICU after officials say he was accidentally shot in the neck on Sunday.
Hunner Leblanc was playing with his two cousins at their home when they found a gun, his mother Leslie Babineaux said. A few moments later, the gun went off, shooting Hunner in his neck.
“I started hyperventilating. I didn’t shed any tears. I was just numb,” the mother said.
He was airlifted to Lafayette General for surgery. The bullet had hit his spinal cord. He’s now conscious, but unable to speak or breathe on his own.
“I’m just happy he’s alive. I prayed for that, and I got my miracle. He’s my miracle; he’s not even supposed to be here,” Babineaux said of the incident which nearly claimed her son’s life. “I just want him to talk to me. I want that more than anything; more than anything I want him to communicate. I tell him I love him, and he [nods].”
Hunner had just started high school and made the football team, but now he is paralyzed from the waist down.
Doctors don’t know yet if he’ll ever be able to walk again.
“He has an artificial valve where his artery got busted, so he can’t have any kind of impact, nothing. He’ll never play sports. He always wanted to play football,” said his mother.
As Hunner prepares for a long road to recovery, his mother hopes his story will serve as a warning for other parents.
“The guns need to be put up to where only an adult can touch them. This could have happened to anybody. Nobody, no parent period, should have to watch their child suffer the way I’m watching my child suffer from something that should’ve been, could’ve been– should have never happened,” she said.
The family now has to renovate their home and get a van to be wheelchair accessible for Hunner.
You can donate to their GoFund Me. Click here.
