For 16-year-old Orell Reyes, life shifted from chasing goals on the football pitch to fighting for a second chance at walking in mere minutes. Just one week before his 16th? No, 16-year-old Reyes, a rising young football talent from Pomona Village, Belize, saw his promising athletic future upended on June 2, when a seemingly random shooting left him paralyzed from the waist down, with a bullet still trapped in his spinal area.
The attack unfolded shortly after Reyes wrapped up a routine training session. He stopped to purchase cold drinks for his waiting cousins when two gunmen on a motorcycle opened fire on the group, in an attack that police have confirmed was unprovoked and appears to have no targeted connection to the teen.
“No motive has been established. However, we are not of the view that any of the injured individuals was the target,” explained Assistant Superintendent of Police Stacy Smith, the department’s staff officer leading the preliminary investigation.
Reyes woke up in a local Belizean hospital to a devastating diagnosis: he had lost all sensation and mobility below his waist. Recalling the immediate aftermath of the shooting, Reyes described the disorienting pain that only settled in his upper body, while his lower half went completely numb. “I got pain only in my two hands. From my waist to my foot, dead, dead, dead, pops. I can’t feel nothing. But the pain just deh in my hand. I gone da hospital, and they gave me a little couple drips and two injection that calm down the pain a lee while pops,” he shared in an interview from his hospital bed.
Local medical facilities do not have the specialized capacity to safely remove the bullet lodged in Reyes’ back, with doctors advising that any attempt to extract it domestically carries only a 50% chance of success. The only path forward that could give Reyes a shot at regaining his mobility is specialized surgical intervention at a medical center in Mérida, Mexico – a costly trip that his working-class family cannot afford on their own.
For his mother, Kimberly Estero, watching her teenage son endure endless bedridden pain has been an agonizing experience. She has now issued a public plea to communities across Belize and beyond, asking for any support – whether financial assistance or even just prayers – to help get her son the care he needs.
“Ih hard. Really, really hard and rough. I don’t like to get emotional, but don’t want to see my baby in this pain. It hurt me a lot. I can’t help ah. So I’d really ask Belize from near and far, whoever can help me so I can take my son out of the country, I will really appreciate it. Even prayers, whatever. I need my baby to come out of this pain and, you know, get back on his foot again. He’s very young, just sixteen,” Estero said.
For Reyes, who once dreamed of a professional career in football, his ambition has narrowed to one simple, life-changing goal: walking again. Tired of spending every day confined to a hospital bed, he says he is desperate for the chance to regain his independence.
“I just want a little help to go outside. ‘Cause, like, they told me that they can’t take out the bullet in my back. Here in Belize, ’cause da wa fifty-fifty chance, right? So I ask if they could please help me so I can go outside so they can take out this bullet out of my back, pops, ’cause I tired of laying on my back, pops. So I just really appreciate and ask anybody if they could help so I can at least stand up and walk back pops,” Reyes said.
Despite the overwhelming uncertainty surrounding their son’s future, Estero says she continues to encourage Reyes to hold onto hope and faith that they will secure the support they need. The family is now racing against time to raise the necessary funds to get Reyes to Mérida before any permanent, irreversible damage develops, and they are counting on public goodwill to give the teen his fight back.
This report was compiled from a original televised newscast from News Five, Belize.