Tears and Frustrations....

I debated whether to post this, but I feel it may have interest to all parents.

My son and many members of this board know Antonio Cousart, one of the most talented athletes in Charlotte and an extremely talented junior pitcher at Myers Park. Antonio was shot and left, at this moment, paralyzed by the buzz saw bullet. As a parent, you can imagine the emotions anyone close to Antonio is going through.....I thought to myself, how could this happen? You hear about things like this everyday, but not to someone you know and certainly not to a kid with as many option as Antonio had.....then you start thinking about your own son and where he goes and who he hangs out with.

When this happened to Antonio, I thought it was better not to say anything about this on the board and let it remain private, even though many of the people on this board knows Antonio and were craving any tidbit of information on his progress.

Well......just when you start to regain some element of trust in society, at least in regards to our HS baseball players, it has happened again.

A local Charlotte HS pitcher was shot in the head last night....and chances of survival are slim at best. It was a senseless act and one of those " wrong place at the wrong time" situations......this is insane! I know this kid and I know his family very well...great people all around! It leaves a parent with a feeling of "what can I do to protect my child"? Can anyone really?

The point of this post is for all of us parents MUST know who are kids friends are and where they are going at all times...no, it won't prevent this kind of senseless tragedy......but it might....and at this time I don't know of anything else to do. It's frightening, maddening and frustrating.

 

This is every parents nightmare. You expressed the worry we go through precisely Braves. The fact that both of these young men were fine baseball players is incidental to the senseless tragedy that they (and their families) are experiencing.

Thanks for posting this. I know it's difficult, but it's so necessary that we remind our kids how senseless events like these can happen to bystanders who "just hang around and watch what's going on".

 

Tears & Fears

I am very sad to hear about Antonio, He and my son played AAU basketball together several years ago. Both he and his family are good folks. I don't know who the other young man is but we will keep them both in our prayers!

 

A Prayer for the family

I want to post a prayer for the Hill family who are going through such difficult times right now. Our hearts and prayers go out to both team and to the teammates of the young man who was so tragically struck down.

We pray that the injury for this latest victim of violent trauma isn't as severe as it is currently feared that he will make a complete, full recovery..... and that the other young men on our baseball teams that have gone through these tragedies would learn wisdom and compassion from the pain of these experiences.

 

Any Word

Any word on how Brandon is doing?

 

Brandon Hill had surgery late Tuesday and the family is very positive about the results. The surgeon was able to remove the bullet and a number of fragments that they had expected would be too dangerous to pursue. Brandon is now responding regularly to specific commands and reacting to family members.

The Hills were told on Saturday night when Brandon was admitted to the hospital that his chances for survival were slim, so the improvements have been dramatic. That being said, Brandon's condition remains critical and the
medical report states that it could be weeks before he is in the clear and...
Brandon is not out of the woods yet.

*This was copied from a post from SouthLoop to me

 

There's a page one article in the Observer today. Sounds like Olympic students are rallying around him & his family. Thanks for bringing this to our attention, Braves.

 

New article in the Observer today. Looks like Brandon is improving, but still in critical condition.