A five-year-old girl, Kai Leigh Harriott, wheelchair bound after a bullet paralyzed her three years ago, forgave the man who shot her and told him what he had done to her was wrong. She did this to his face, in court.

After breaking down and crying, the girl picked up a glass of water, took a sip, and said to Anthony Warren ‘What you done to me was wrong … but I still forgive him.’ Anthony Warren had pleaded guilty to shooting her, shots that paralyzed the girl.

Kai Lee Harriot used to be able to walk. She had been a healthy little girl. Almost three years ago she had been sitting on a porch. Warren had had an argument with some people who lived in the first floor of the house (a building which housed three families). He returned at about 11pm and shot three times at the house. His target had been the person he had had an argument with – not Kai. Kai, three years’ old at the time, was hit by one of the bullets. She had been sitting there on the porch with her older sister.

The bullet shattered the little girl’s spine. From that moment onwards she lost all movement from the chest down.

Warren was sentenced to 13-15 years in prison and 5 years’ probation.

Hopefully, one day, as medicine makes new headways in neuroscience, Kai may eventually be able to get up from her wheelchair and walk again, unaided. I am humbled by her benevolence. She will always be an example to me of how good and untainted a human can be. I am 50 and she is five – yet she is light-years ahead of me.

Written by: Christian Nordqvist
Editor: Medical News Today