The mother of the Brooklyn teen left paralyzed in a tragic shooting hopes he may regain his ability to walk, she said Wednesday — as sources revealed the promising basketball player was hit by a bullet meant for a church acquaintance.
Nana Effah Donkor, 16, was outside a Brooklyn bus stop Sunday with a pal after leaving a basketball tournament, when a fellow church goer strolled by and briefly greeted him, he told The Post from his hospital bed.
Moments later, three teens walked up and opened fire, he said.
“Yo, that’s him!” he recalled one of the shooters blurted. “They were talking about the guy next to me and I took off. They weren’t talking about me because I didn’t know them.”
Donkor was running for cover when he “felt the pain and fell over” on Avenue J and East 16th Street in Midwood — leaving him paralyzed.
“The first day he got shot, I came and the report wasn’t good,” his mom, Danielle Boakye, said in a phone interview.
“The bullet went straight to his spinal cord. He wasn’t feeling his legs. They were cold.”
Her son underwent surgery but doctors told her the bullet will do more damage if it’s removed.
Miraculously, her son — a junior on the Far Rockaway Seahorses basketball team — soon started feeling sensation in his feet.
“That’s why I say I have hope,” she added. “I hope he will walk again, it’s just a matter of time.”
She described him as a hardworking student who excels on the court and in his studies.
Donkor, meanwhile, barely knew the intended target — who police sources believe is a gangbanger.
“I go to church with him. That’s all I know about him,” Donkor said.
His worried mom slammed senseless teen violence plaguing the Big Apple.
“They should stop,” Boakye said. “If I had the power…children wouldn’t have access to guns.”
The suspects have yet to be caught as of Wednesday night.
Additional reporting by Joe Marino
