‘Strongest kid that you’ll ever meet’: 4-year-old survives being shot in head in apparent road rage incident

iStock/Thinkstock(CLEVELAND) — A 4-year-old boy who was shot in the head in an apparent road rage incident in Cleveland is “doing great” after undergoing surgery, doctors said Friday.

The 4-year-old was shot while driving with his mother and 7-year-old sister late Sunday evening, police said. The mother honked her horn to pass another car blocking the road, that car allegedly followed the mother onto the freeway and fired shots into the woman’s car, police said.

“He’s doing great,” Dr. Krystal Tomei, chief pediatric neurosurgeon at Cleveland University Hospitals at University Hospitals Rainbow Babies & Children’s Hospital, said at a press conference on Friday. “Out and about playing.”

The bullet went through the front of the 4-year-old’s brain, Tomei said. Surgeons used parts of the boy’s skull and titanium plates to repair the damage.

“He was incredibly lucky,” she said, later adding, “We usually don’t see kids with similar injuries have this kind of outcome.”

Cecilia Hill, the boy’s mother, thanked doctors for their efforts to save her son.

“I lost my faith that night because as a mother I was not able to protect my kids,” she said. “It’s the only thing that keeps me going every day … is that my kids are stronger than me.”

She added: “He’s the strongest kid that you’ll ever meet.”

Two men have been arrested in connection with the shooting, according to local ABC affiliate WEWS-TV.

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