Bronx Teen Fights to Recover from Gunshot

The stray bullet that pierced a Bronx teenager's head left her unable to speak, but after a week, Vada Vasquez finally uttered her first word: "Mom."

Vada is among more than a half-dozen New Yorkers struck this year by stray bullets. Three of them were teenagers who died.

On Wednesday, Gemma Vasquez joined members of a trauma team at Lincoln Hospital for a briefing on her 15-year-old daughter's condition.

"I would like to thank everybody who is praying for her," Vasquez told reporters.

After her daughter first awoke from medical sedation, Vazquez said, "I could look into her eyes, and I could see the pain and the tears, and then she said, 'Mom.'"

Vada was shot Nov. 16 by a hooded gunman wearing a Yankees cap and riding a bike while she walked home from school in the Morrisania neighborhood. A 16-year-old boy and four other young men who police say are members of a gang have been arrested on attempted murder charges.

Authorities said Vada was hit by a bullet aimed at 19-year-old Tyrone Creighton in retaliation for a jailhouse fight at Rikers Island. Creighton was also wounded but treated and released.

Dr. Narayan Sundaresan, chief of neurosurgery, said Vada had surgery soon after she arrived at the hospital in critical condition. Vada had bone fragments lodged in her temple after the shooting, he said.

It left her with subtle speech defects, but she has "the potential to fully recover," Sundaresan said.

After the shooting, New York Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly said there are still "way too many guns on the street. It underscores the glaring lack of a national gun control policy."

Two New York legislators — Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand and Rep. Carolyn McCarthy — are introducing a bill to crack down on illegal gun trafficking.

The legislation would make it a crime to traffic in firearms and would target middlemen who buy guns for others to avoid background checks. Traffickers could face as many as 20 years in prison, while dealers would lose their licenses for six months and face fines.

Gemma Vasquez said the family's Thanksgiving will be postponed until Vada returns home.

"It's going to be a good Thanksgiving, it's going to be a good Christmas, it's going to be a good everything," she said.