According to the 45-year-old mother, Lynda, her 13-year-old son, Zach, was reportedly left permanently brain damaged after bullies forced him to do something that nearly killed the boy. The unfortunate mother also said that her son will never be the same again as he suffered stroke due to the incident. Lynda discovered her son passed out on their living room sofa complaining of chest pains. The boy was rushed to the hospital, where he flatlined minutes after arrival. Hospital staff told the mother that her son suffered a stroke and after being resuscitated, he was put on life support.
The mother told authorities that she had no idea why her son had been left fighting for his life, until doctors cut off his clothes to find a vape pen laced with deadly opioid fentanyl, along with marijuana, The Daily Mail reports. The boy woke up from coma 2 weeks later and said that he had been given the vape by a group of children, who made him smoke it in front of him. The 13-year-old boy also said that the group of eight boys and a girl said they would beat him up if he didn’t hide the laced vape pen for them.
The unfortunate boy also said that he thought that the bullies were his friends. Lynda said that her son will never be the same again due to damage on the right-hand-side of his brain. She reportedly said: “It was terrifying. I was praying to God to let my son live, to bring him back. He wasn’t responding to anything, and then they told me they were going to lose him if I didn’t sign a paper to put him on ECMO (extracorporeal membrane oxygenation). I said, do anything you can to bring him back. Don’t let him die. Then he was in a coma for two and a half weeks. They didn’t think he was ever going to come out of it. I didn’t know he had the vape because he had it hidden in his underwear. The boys said they’d beat him up, so he took it out of fear.”
The 13-year-old boy was then taken to Children’s Healthcare where he was provided with speech, physical and occupational therapies. As a result of the damage to the right side of his brain, Zach has experienced seizures and has lost both sight in his right eye, and function of his left arm. The boy is currently using a wheelchair due to problems with balance, and has needed to re-learn how to do basic tasks such as count and speak. Doctors also told the mother that it is unlikely that Zach will regain full use of his left arm. Lynda said that she is now trying to raise funds to cover medical bills, and is advocating for parents to be more proactive when it comes to bullying.
