I first shared this case in October 2018 – you can read it here: The Bullied Student Who Persevered. I looked into a possible follow up post on the victim and found an amazing survival journey that warranted an update.
A quick refresher: A bullied 12-year-old boy wrote a letter to the school administration about him being bullied. So did his parents. The bullying continued.
On the final day of being bullied, the bully sucker punched the victim in his abdomen. The punch caused a blood clot in his main artery, supplying blood to the spine. The injury caused him to become a paraplegic for the rest of his life.
Because of his tragic case of bullying, school districts and universities across the United States have implemented anti-bullying measures. So then, you may wonder if the measures have helped reduce the cases of bullying. It doesn’t seem so. You can have many policies in place, but if nobody is enforcing the policies, they’re worthless.
As a boy he had a passion for science, space, and NASA. While attending college, the bullied young man, navigating the world from a wheelchair, responded to a Twitter tweet about co-hosting a podcast about space. He and his podcast co-host did a live podcast at Kennedy Space Center to witness the final space shuttle launch—two hundred listeners tuned in.
His broadcasting career began with the podcast. From there, he’s been a broadcast journalist (aka news reporter) on both radio and TV. He hosts and edits an internet radio show, Talking Space, and is also the news producer at a network station. #bullyingsurvivor #positiveattitude
During an interview at 18, he discussed the mental aspect of being a paraplegic. He pushed the “Why did this happen to me? Why me?” questions to the back of his mind. The positives in his life outweigh the negatives. He’s been quoted saying,
Don’t tell me the sky’s the limit when there are footprints on the moon.”
Here are some great resources for parents:
Worth Mentioning: I searched high and low both when writing the original summary and for this follow-up and found nothing about the bully who sucker punched this boy being charged with a crime.
Be sure to email me if you hear of a true-crime you think would be good in a book. I’ll research it, share it and possibly use it one of my novels.
Source: Sawyer Rosenstein website, Syracuse University News
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