Oronde McClain was struck by a stray bullet on a Philadelphia street corner when he was 10.
The bullet shattered the back of his skull, splintering it into 36 pieces. McClain’s heart stopped, and he was technically dead for two minutes and 17 seconds.
Although a hospital team shocked him back to life, McClain never fully recovered. Doctors removed half his skull, replacing it with a gel plate, but shrapnel remains.
The shooting left him in a coma for seven weeks and in a wheelchair for nearly two years. School bullies magnified his pain, laughing at his speech and the helmet he wore to protect his brain. McClain said he repeatedly attempted suicide as a teenager. He remains partly paralyzed on his right side and endures seizures and post-traumatic stress disorder.
“People who die, they get funerals and balloon releases,” said McClain, now 33. “Survivors don’t get anything.” a Philadelphia street
In the year after they were shot, child and adolescent survivors were more than twice as likely as other kids to experience a pain disorder, said Zirui Song, an associate professor of health care policy and medicine at Harvard Medical School and the co-author of a new study in Health Affairs. The shooting survivors in the study — age 19 and younger — were found to be 68% more likely than other kids to have a psychiatric diagnosis and 144% as likely to develop a substance use disorder.
Across the United States, firearm injuries were the leading cause of death for people ages 1 to 19 in 2020 and 2021, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. More than 48,000 Americans of all ages were killed by firearms in 2022. And an average of about 85,000 Americans survive firearm injuries every year.
“The public hears about mass shootings and the number of people who died,” Song said. “The population of people affected by firearm violence is much larger than deaths alone.”
Most Americans say they or a family member has experienced gun violence, including witnessing a shooting, being threatened by a person with a gun, or being shot, according to a KFF survey.