Gunplay survivor-boy will skip school

After surviving a shot in the head, 14-year-old Mark Rey Abaño is back home with a bandaged head.

The teenager said he needs time to rest and doesn’t plan to go to school when classes resume today.

“He can walk but we need to assist him.” said Abaño’s 34-year-old aunt Jona Abejo in Cebuano.

When Cebu Daily News visited Abaño’s house in barangay Pasil, Cebu City, he managed to move about without crutches.

The surgeon who operated on his gunshot injury told CDN the boy would need physical rehabilitation therapy to strengthen his limbs. Mark could actually attend school but in a wheelchair.

Mark Rey was discharged from the Cebu City Medical Center (CMMC)  last May 31, after being operated on for  a head injury sustained in a shooting inside a billiard hall by an 11-year-old friend, who claimed it was an accident.

Mark Rey said they became friends several months ago after meeting in the billiard hall where he worked as an errand boy.

According to Mark Rey, there was no conflict between them. But now that he’s out of the hospital, he’s  afraid to go out of the house. He said he can no longer go back to work in the billiard hall.

Asked to recall the May 19 incident, Mark Rey said he was watching computer games in an Internet station in the billiard hall when the gunshot rang.

“Dili man na siya palaaway. Buotan man na siya,” said his aunt, Abejo, who works as a freelance beautician, (Mark Rey isn’t a trouble-maker. He’s a good boy.)

Abejo said they are still looking for money to pay an unsettled portion of the medical bill for his surgery.

Although CCMC hospital expenses were charged to the charity program, the professional fee, amounting to P22,000.00 for the neuro-surgeon who performed the brain surgery still had to be paid in full.

Mark Rey’s family used the P10,000.00 financial assistance from the Basil Barangay Council as partial payment to the the neuro-surgeon.

Abejo said they didn’t receive any financial help or wheelchair from City Hall yet as announced by Mayor Michael Rama.

Mark Rey’s neuro-surgeon declined to be named in the interview with CDN saying he didn’t want publicity for his services.

He however said his services was tantamount to “pro-bono” already. And he even has to split it with the anesthesiologist who assisted him.

Professional fees for neuro-surgeons in simple brain surgery in private hospitals range from P60,000 – P80,000 he said.

“Although we consider this as charity case, we do have a practice of charging professional fees even if the patient is indigent in medico-legal cases, as it can be charged to the civil liability of the one who caused the injury or crime,” he said.

Partially disabled

He said the boy is “partially” disabled and can’t lift heavy objects. “For now, he can’t walk with his left foot,” he said.

Asked on his prognosis for recovery, the surgeon said he expects Mark Rey to walk “normally” in a year’s time.

“He needs to continue his physiotherapy (physical rehabilitation therapy).”

The surgeon said the bullet entered the boy’s frontal lobe of the brain, which is the brain’s “sensory center” and exited in the parietal lobe. The bullet went “through and through.”

The surgeon said Mark Rey is suffering “weakness” in the upper left part of his body – (left shoulder, arm and hands) or left “upper extremity”.

His mental faculties are normal. “He s intellectually okay,” the doctor said.

The surgeon said Abaño can go to school but would have to use  a wheel chair.

Although the assailant in this case is known, the Juvenile Justice and Welfare Act (RA 9344) exempts children below 15-year-old from any criminal liability. /Rhea Ruth V. Rosell, Reporter