Boy Thrown From Tate Modern Goes in the Pool Again

9-year-old continues to improve
By Jenn Gidman,  Newser Staff
Posted Dec 1, 2020 9:30 AM CST
Updated May 30, 2022 2:00 AM CDT
Update on Boy Thrown From Tate Modern Has Mixed News
The Tate Modern art museum in London.   (Getty Images/claudiodivizia)

Update: The boy who was hurled from a viewing platform at London's Tate Modern museum in 2019 is doing better than doctors had predicted, his family says in a new update posted to a GoFundMe campaign set up to help with his recovery. "We were able to celebrate his birthday for the first time with other children since the attack," they write. "They had a great afternoon together, despite their differences in mobility. It was exhausting for us, but it was a step closer to a classic life, and it's worth it." They say he's standing upright more, recently visited his school cafeteria for the first time, and was recently able to go swimming for the first time since the attack: "Our son has to start all over again from the beginning but that doesn't scare him! He is so happy in the water!" In an update from March, they said he had also been able to play at a playground for the first time. Our original story from Dec. 1, 2020, follows:

Some good news on the young boy who was hurled off a viewing platform last year at London's Tate Modern museum. The French tourist—who was 6 when he fell five floors after being thrown off a 10th-floor balcony by 17-year-old Jonty Bravery in August 2019—ended up in the hospital with "catastrophic injuries," including multiple fractures and bleeding on the brain, per CNN. Now, however, his family says he's starting to walk with a cane, doesn't need as much pain medication, and is even starting to talk more and sing. "Despite everything, he continues to make efforts and progress," the boy's family says on a fundraising page about his recuperation in France. "He begins to walk with a tetrapod cane while we hold him by the back of the coat for balance."

The statement notes the boy, now 7, is also trying more simple everyday tasks, such as holding a toothpaste tube, and is gradually talking more. "He still speaks very slowly, but now speaks word by word and no longer syllable by syllable," his family says. "He tries to sing and make up songs with rhymes." Still, the boy's weekend visits home from the hospital have been suspended, and his family says being in the hospital all week is "very tiring," per Sky News. "Our son's memory is once again greatly affected," they note. "He no longer remembers what he did that day or what day it is." The GoFundMe for the boy has so far raised around $350,000, per the Independent. Bravery, meanwhile, was sentenced over the summer to at least 15 years behind bars after being charged with attempted murder. (More uplifting news stories.)

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