Army Vet Paralyzed After Shooting Outside Busch Stadium Following Cardinals Game
A U.S. Army veteran is paralyzed after being shot by a robber outside Busch Stadium in St. Louis.
Chris Sanna, who served in the military for six years, was heading to a nearby parking lot with his girlfriend on Friday night after attending the St. Louis Cardinals game when a gunman accosted the couple.
According to reports, the thief and an accomplice had pulled up in a black sedan at about 10:30 p.m. and demanded their personal possessions at gunpoint.
Sanna’s girlfriend gave the thief her purse, but when the couple turned to run away, the gunman shot Sanna in the back.
The ex-soldier, 42, was at the game with his siblings to celebrate the birthday of his mom, Candis Sanna, an avid Cards fan.
“As a mother of four sons, there are few moments I can look back to and fondly remember having each of my boys, each unique and individual in his own way, yet all completely of me, together in a single place at once…This rare, and precious night turned into every mother’s worst nightmare,” wrote Candis Sanna about the horrific incident.
The rest of the family had remained in the stadium to watch post-game fireworks.
The suspects in the armed robbery are still at large, and the FBI is assisting local cops in the manhunt.
A bullet penetrated Sanna’s liver, spine, and lungs, and shattered his spine, leaving him tragically paralyzed.
In an update on the website, Candis Sanna explained, “Just met with the trauma surgeon. They won’t do surgery since they don’t think it will help. However the good news is they also think the spine is in great trauma and they want to wait and see if It recovers itself some It is slight hope. He stressed that be we believe in miracles.”
According to the city’s police chief, investigators have few if any leads at the moment, the St. Louis Post-Dispatch reported. “He said the shooting was near the construction at the St. Louis arch and that there aren’t any video cameras that caught the robbery. He said the description is vague: a black man with long dreadlocks who was 5 foot 2 to 5 foot 5 inches tall with a stocky build.”
The chief and the mayor indicated they would authorize a beefed-up police presence in the downtown area as the Cardinals go into the MLB playoffs. The mayor claimed, however, that thugs in St. Louis are becoming more bold and violent and equipping themselves with increased firepower.
Mrs. Sanna told CBS News affiliate KMOX that her son was “doing remarkably well, considering.”
The St. Louis Post-Dispatch described what happened in the immediate aftermath of the shooting outside Busch Stadium.
“After his girlfriend called 911, Christopher Sanna lay on the pavement and called his mother’s cellphone from the scene. It was so noisy from the fireworks that his mother didn’t pick up. ‘Mom I’ve been shot,’ he said on his mother’s voicemail. Since, Sanna has been on pain medication at the hospital but has been awake and able to share some of the details of what happened to him.”
In a separate, recent violent incident in which a serviceman was victimized, a U.S. army captain was nearly beaten to death by eight attackers outside a restaurant in the upscale Country Club Plaza enclave in Kansas City.
[Photo by Michael Thomas/Getty Images]
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