A family spokeswoman stated on Thursday that an 8-year-old child may never walk again after sustaining a severed spinal cord in the July 4th Highland Park parade attack in Chicago.
Cooper Roberts, together with his twin brother and mother, was among the many survivors of the horrific shooting that left seven people dead and scores of survivors with gunshot wounds and other injuries.
According to a family spokesman, he was listed on Thursday in critical but stable condition, paralyzed from the waist down and breathing on a ventilator.
It will become his new normal going forward, Loizzi said. He sounds like he’ll have a lot of problems in the future, especially walking.
Cooper’s twin brother, Luke, was hospitalized with shrapnel wounds in his lower body but was discharged after doctors removed some of the debris, although they were unable to remove it all.
The boys’ mother, Keely Roberts, suffered gunshot wounds to her legs and feet, the spokesman, Anthony Loizzi, told reporters on a Zoom call.
The father, Jason Roberts, who attended the parade as well, was unhurt.
Cooper’s spinal cord injury is so severe that physicians are unclear if he will ever be able to walk normally again, according to Loizzi, the mother’s colleague and head of a Lake County primary school district.
Since being transported to the University of Chicago Comer Children’s Hospital, Cooper, a typically “extremely active” boy with a love of baseball and other sports, has remained unconscious and under sedation, according to Loizzi.
In order to be with her son at the children’s hospital, the mother—who herself had undergone at least two surgeries—insisted on being released on Wednesday, sooner than the doctors thought was ideal until her bleeding was better controlled, according to Loizzi. The mother herself had undergone at least two surgeries. She was so distressed about Cooper’s condition.
Cooper adored the household dog.
The youngster has had a number of surgeries, including one on Wednesday night in which doctors ‘finally closed his belly,’ according to the spokeswoman.
Despite being unaware of Cooper’s particular prognosis, Loizzi told reporters that the boy’s mother and an older sister had discussed how “it will be a new normal for him moving forward.”
Regarding the boy’s recovery, Loizzi remarked, “He’s battling as hard as he can.” He said that the entire family, including had four older sisters, was “devastated but focused their efforts on Cooper.”
‘It’s been a very emotional time for everyone in their circle,’ he said, adding he did not know whether Luke had yet been apprised of the severity of his twin’s condition.
Loizzi said both Cooper and twin brother Luke ‘loved the parade’ and had attended the event in the past, but he did not know where along the parade route they were when the gunshots were fired.
They are ‘best friends, partners in crime,’ Cooper’s oldest sister said in a statement.
‘There’s nothing this kid can’t do and no words for the amount of goodness within him,’ it added.
Friends of the family established a GoFundMe page seeking to help address their medical bills.
The Roberts were not the only family suffering multiple casualties from the bloodshed in Highland Park, Illinois.
Among those killed were Irina McCarthy, 35, and her husband Kevin McCarthy, 37, whose 2-year-old son was found wandering unhurt physically, but alone and orphaned after the attack.
Dr. David Baum, a longtime obstetrician in Highland Park, was there to witness his two-year-old grandson march in the parade with his wife and kids. He jumped into the conflict to try to aid the victims as bullets were fired and others fled.
Baum spoke about witnessing patients with “wartime” and “unspeakable” wounds in a CNN interview.
Robert Crimo, 21, who was captured late on Monday, July 4, used a weapon “similar to an AR-15” to fire over 70 shots into the crowd that had assembled for the parade in Highland Park, a wealthy neighborhood of roughly 30,000 people on the coast of Lake Michigan, according to police.
Hundreds of mourners gathered at dusk on Tuesday to hold a vigil for those killed in the mass shooting.
On Tuesday night, at a monument close to the parade route where the tragic shooting happened on July 4th, the distraught victims’ family members, friends, and neighbors lit candles, scattered flowers on the ground, and left messages of condolence.
Following the shooting on Monday, members of the neighborhood hugged each other at the vigil, with some sobbing in tears.
Others decorated bright pieces of fabric attached to a railing with condolences and the names of the fallen.
After Robert Crimo, 21, opened fire on the Fourth of July parade with an AR-15-style rifle, seven people have already killed and many more have been hurt.
Eric Rinehart, the state attorney for Lake County, said on Tuesday night that Crimo had been charged with seven counts of first-degree murder. He declared that “dozens” more charges will be brought, and he hoped to lock Crimo in for the rest of his life.