By Carmen Perez

BRONX New York—-All it took was one second to change fifteen-year-old Vada Vasquez’s life. She was walking home from school with her best friend just before four o’ clock on November 16th when she was shot in the back of the head by a stray bullet. The bullet pierced the left side of her skull, and hit her brain before going all the way though her head.

“We just want her back, I can’t wait until she opens her eyes. I just want her to open her eyes and return to normal,” said Vasquez’s older sister Mandy Boodram, 33, as she waited for her sister’s full recovery in the Lincoln Hospital waiting room.

Eight days after the shooting, Boodram and the rest of Vasquez’s family got what they hoped for. Vasquez woke up from a medically induced coma and uttered her first word, ‘Mom.’ Because of the nature of her injuries, doctors at Lincoln Hospital are stunned at her pace of recovery, said Renalda Walker, a hospital spokeswoman.

The shot heard around the Bronx happened on Home Street near Union Avenue. Vasquez was just two blocks from Bronx Latin School, where she is a sophomore, when a man opened fire with a .40-caliber handgun at about 3:45 p.m. Her family and neighbors have not been the same since—and the shooting has prompted support for anti-violence measures in the city.

“I call her my lil’ punk rocker; this is a terrible tragedy,” said Ruben Pinero, a superintendent in a building next to Vasquez’s home, which ironically, is on the same street where police gunned down Amadou Diallo in the early morning hours of February 4rth, 1999.

The shot, police said, was really intended for Tyrone Creighton, 19, who is the brother of two men who are currently in jail on Riker’s Island. Police believe that a fight involving his two brothers sparked the shooting two weeks ago.

“We believe the shooting was in retaliation to a beating that was given by someone who is in Riker’s Island,” Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly said.

Five young men have been arrested in conjunction with the shooting. They all remain in custody at Riker’s Island.

The youngest of the five is 16 year-old Carvett Gentiles; police have named him as the shooter. Gentiles and the other four are charged with attempted murder, assault, and criminal use of a gun. Police said they are part of the gang Gorilla Stone Blood.

Two days after the shooting, Boodram and her family celebrated when they learned the shooter had been arrested.

“They got the shooter,” said the victim’s sister a few hours later, with the Daily News clutched in her hand. “My sister is fighting for her life. But it is a shame that the guy who shot her is 16, just one year older than her.”

Vasquez is the youngest of five sisters in a tight knit family that live in the same house in the Bronx, She is particularly missed by her niece and nephew, Boodram said.

“She took my kids trick or treating. She is such a good auntie,” said Boodram of her younger sister. “My son keeps asking ‘When is Vada coming back mommy?’”

The tragedy took a while to sink in, Boodram said about the tragedy.

“I always hear her play music in the mornings before school.” Boodram said. “The morning after, I thought it was a bad dream until I didn’t hear her music.”

Her sister Mandy describes what it was like when her family found out.

“I was cooking an early dinner and my mom was in the car waiting for Vada so they could go to a parent teacher conference,” she recalled.

But when Vada’s mom’s cell phone rang it wasn’t Vada on the other end, but her mother screaming that Vada had been shot.

“I ran to the car, pushed my mom aside and tore off to the hospital,” she finished. “I must have tore through a lotta red lights on my way, I was just focused on getting to Vada.”

This shooting has not only resonated with the Vasquez family, but also with the community.

“It’s been rough, the Bronx used to be kind of good when I was little,” said Jay Bonds, standing guard next to his grocery cart on Westchester Ave. “Now it is just about gangs, they are everywhere.”

He shakes his head and stares up at the elevated train. “Poor girl,” he said. “She was just in the wrong place at the wrong time.”

Long time neighbor Ruben Pinero is also in disbelief over the tragedy. Pinero says the neighborhood has been deteriorating for a long time and he often fears for his own kids when he sends them on a bus to school.

“I’ve known Vada since she was three years old,” Pinero said. “ It is so sad that kids can’t even walk home safe because of some punks.”

The New York Police Department does not keep statistics on people shot by stray bullets, but according to the New York Times and other media reports, seven people have been shot by stray bullets this year up from four in 2008. Of those seven, three have been teenagers.

Since the shooting, Mayor Michael Bloomberg and Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly announced they had broken up an illegal gun-sales operation in Brooklyn. And in Times Square Rev. Al Sharpton’s National Action Network gathered supporters for a “day of outrage” on November 23rd.

These events are happening against the backdrop of Vasquez’s shooting. In a recent press conference Mayor Michael Bloomberg asked all of New York City to keep Vasquez in their thoughts.

“It’s a terrible tragedy,” Bloomberg said. “Hopefully she will find some way to pull through this.”

Vasquez’s life continues to hang in the balance since getting shot on Nov. 16.

Since the shooting, Vada’s mother, Gemma, has not left her side and her family is still trying to come to grips with what has happened.

“My mom is crying enough for all of us,” she said. “I need to be strong for her and my kids.”

Boodram also says much of her family has been fighting feelings of guilt since the shooting happened.

“We ask ourselves, why hadn’t they been there or what if she had been picked up from school that day?” Boodram said. “The last time I saw her was Sunday night when she came down to say goodnight and have some lasagna.”

Such feelings of guilt are normal in a situation like this, according to Ronald Feldman, Dean Emeritus and Professor at Columbia University’s School of Social Work.

“Such acts of violence are extremely destabilizing to two of the most important protective factors needed within a youth’s community: physical safety and psychological safety,” Feldman said. “This is especially the case when an act of violence is widely publicized throughout a given community.”

In early December, Vasquez was moved out of Lincoln Hospital and into a rehabilitation center in the Bronx.

“I just can’t wait for her to open her eyes one day and say ‘Hi Mandy’ and then make fun of me,” said her sister.