Exclusive: Hollywood Broadwalk mass shooting victim, 15, speaks out
HOLLYWOOD — For the first time, we are hearing from one of the nine survivors of the Memorial Day shooting on the Hollywood Broadwalk.
Kyan Reddix, 15, spoke exclusively with CBS News Miami's Peter D'Oench.
New photographs obtained by CBS News Miami show how Reddix is not on crutches after he said he was shot four times.
The victims, who were between the ages of 16 months and 65 years old, had been hospitalized at Joe DiMaggio Children's Hospital and Memorial Regional Hospital. Reddix was the last of the survivors to be released from the hospital.
Reddix was caught in a crossfire between two groups of shooters. He said he did not recognize any of them but he said he is truly grateful that he survived.
He said he preferred doing a telephone interview and told us: "I am feeling better."
"I was shot four times in the chest and stomach. I am still in pain a little bit," Reddix said. "I have to learn to walk again. I am going to devote my summer to recovering and having fun. I will be going into the 10th grade next year at the Whispering Pines School. I do need help whenever I get up and down."
He said he clearly remembers the shooting.
"It was a fight," he said. "It should never have happened."
Video from the incident shows Good Samaritan Sean Bennett helping Reddix after rushing to his side and applying pressure to his body to stop the bleeding.
Bennett visited Reddix on Monday at Memorial Regional Hospital and cell phone video shows them embracing.
"I feel good about what the Good Samaritan did," Reddix said. "It was very nice. It was nice."
"What did he say to you when he visited you at the hospital?" D'Oench asked.
"I said 'thank you. Thank you for saving me,'" Reddix said. "He kept me calm."
He said he hopes to have a career in music after he finishes school.
"I want to be a rapper," he said.
His mother Latroya Stone said her son has a congenital condition meaning his heart is on the wrong side of the body, and that may have saved his life because he was shot twice in the area of his body where his heart should have been.
"He was actually born that way with his heart on the wrong side of the body so that really helped him out a lot. That really saved him," she said. "It's crazy. God works in mysterious ways. How do you get shot directly in the chest where your heart is supposed to be and because of your condition it is on the wrong side."
Stone said she has a message after this shooting.
"Kids put the guns down. It is not worth it," she said. "It could take away a life and once you take away a life your life is also gone so it is not worth it."
Stone said she was most worried about her son's stomach after the shooting: "That is where he needed some extensive surgery."
"As a mom, it hurts to see him like that because he used to be so independent and now I have to do everything for him, like bathe him, help him get up and sit down and walk," she added. "It's hard to see him like that but he is getting better."
Stone said she is a single mother of three children and has turned to a fundraising website to help with expenses for her family. She said her son's recovery could take up to three months.
"It's hard for me having to go back to work on Monday," she said. "Some days I wake up and he is ok and other days he is in pain."
