Mother of Palestinian student shot in Vermont says he may never walk again

The mother of one of the three Palestinian young men shot in Burlington, Vermont said her son may never walk again after a bullet lodged in his spine.

In interviews with NPR and CNN, Elizabeth Price, the mother of 20-year-old Hisham Awartani, said her son has an “incomplete spinal injury” and that it’s a “very long road he has in front of him.” She said her son can feel his legs but cannot move them.

“The last I knew, he was still in the ICU, immobilized, to try and get the swelling down on his back,” Price told CNN’s Poppy Harlow Tuesday morning, noting that her son also has a broken clavicle and a fractured thumb.

“The doctors are currently saying it’s unlikely he’ll be able to use his legs again,” Price said in an interview with NPR on Monday. “He’s confronting a life of disability, a potentially irreversible change to his life and what it means for his future.”

In an earlier interview, Price said her son was determined to get mobility back in his legs but that doctors were unsure that would be possible.

“He’s just a very resilient young man and he’s been trying to keep everyone’s spirits up by joking and just trying to be as calm as possible,” Price said, CNN reported. “We are determined to work with him and support him and get the best possible care.”

Price is traveling to Vermont from Ramallah to be with her son, first passing through Jordan, where she conducted the CNN interview. She spoke with NPR on Monday from her home in the West Bank.

Awartani is a junior at Brown University but grew up and went to school in Ramallah. He was walking in Burlington with two of his longtime Palestinian friends when they were all shot. The other two victims have been identified as Kinnan Abdalhamid, a student at Haverford College, and Tahseen Ali Ahmad, a student at Trinity College.

“These are boys who grew up in my house, I consider all three of them my children,” Price told NPR in the interview. “I am so glad I’m going to see them and care for them.”

The man charged in connection with the Saturday shooting, Jason Eaton, pleaded not guilty this week to three charges of attempted second-degree murder.

Authorities have not yet determined whether the incident will be treated as a hate crime, but Burlington Police Chief Jon Murad described the incident as a “hateful act” in an interview with CNN.

“But whether or not we can cross the legal threshold in order to determine that it is a hate crime is a different matter,” he said.