Doctors tell the family it's a miracle that their boy is alive.
But while they won't say it out loud, family members seem to wonder if that miracle is really such a good thing.Juan Martin Dominguez just celebrated his 13th birthday on April 15. One week later, a 12-year-old friend fired a shotgun through his neck.
The shotgun blast took with it everything but some muscle tissue. "His body and head are separated about an inch and a half," explains Christine Dominguez, his grandmother.
Martin lies immobilized on his back in an intensive care bed at LDS Hospital, hooked to a dozen tubes and machines. A halo brace stabilizes his neck. His breathing is done by a ventilator - a machine he'll likely be hooked to for the rest of his life.
Martin is paralyzed from the neck down and always will be. His only way to communicate since coming out of his coma is with eye movements and occasional mouthing of words.
How something like this ever happened is a question friends and family members repeat over and over and over.
On the morning of April 22, Ramona Riez told her son to call her when he got out of school at Glendale Junior High. "I'll come and get you," she told him.
Martin never called. Instead, he went with a cousin and a friend to watch a video.
Martin had always been close to his mother and often confided in her. "Other boys wouldn't do that," his grandmother said.
When he once tried marijuana, he told his mother about it and assured her, "Don't worry, Mom. I'll never do it again."
Friends had sometimes pushed him around and teased him "because he wouldn't join in and go with them to do bad things," Dominguez recalled. Martin loved music, baseball and other sports and particularly liked to draw.
But while he may have been 13 for only a few days, Martin's teenage tendencies had already begun. He'd been paying little attention to his mother, Dominguez said. "He always wanted to be with his friends."
What exactly happened at 747 W. 1300 South that afternoon is still unclear. The trio was alone in the home when one of the boys found a loaded shotgun in a closet. The boys told police they unloaded the shotgun.
Dominguez said she understands that Martin was still watching a video when the other boys called him into the room. "He just stood in the doorway and the other boy said, `Look Martin,' and he just said, `Cool.'
"Then he pointed it at him and pressed the trigger."
What the boys didn't realize is there was still a shell in the chamber. It tore through Martin's throat and went out the back of his neck.
"The young man for all intents and purposes was deceased at the scene and they (paramedics) brought him back," said Salt Lake police detective Mickey Pahl.
The blast severed the spinal cord and blew the bone and vocal cords in Martin's neck away, too. After three days in a coma, Martin regained consciousness. But only now is he realizing what happened to him, family members say, and what may be in store.
Dominguez said Martin is depressed and doesn't want to be bothered by anyone. "The other days he actually smiled with us and listened," she said. "Now he just seems to move his eyes around the room and wonder where he is. He'll listen to us, but he'll hardly answer."
Dominguez said, "He's never been close to a gun. His mother has always tried to keep him away from friends who might have them."
Why, she asks out loud for the second time, would people keep loaded guns in a home without locking them up? Gun owners have to take more responsibility, she says. "It (the shotgun) was not supposed to be out, especially if children were let in the house."
Pahl said the investigation into the shooting is far from over. "We don't know whether we're going criminal on this or accidental," he said.
"I'd like to believe it was an accident, but there were things that came out in an interview that changed my thinking a bit." But Pahl said he has no reason to think Martin was anything but an innocent victim.
The West Salt Lake home had been hit during previous drive-by shootings and the owner apparently kept the gun loaded for retaliation or protection from gangs.
But for Martin's family, their concern is the future, not the past.
Riez, who is separated and raising three children, says she cries because she knows she cannot take her son home and care for him as she'd like.
"She doesn't have the financial resources to take him home - and may never," said social worker Kim Evans. Martin will always require special equipment and 24-hour nursing care.
Riez, who speaks little English, baby-sits in her home and sells items she crochets. "Any little thing she can do she'll do to stay home with the kids," Dominguez said.
A trust fund has been established at Utah Central Credit Union where contributions will be accepted (see accompanying box).
Ever since the shooting, Martin's mother and two grandmothers have lived in a small room containing a sofa and a few chairs, just down the hall from Martin's hospital bed. "We stay here day and night," Dominguez said.
They visit with Martin and support each other but can't help spending a lot of time wishing things could be different.
"I think about how he was and how is now. It's a very sad thing," Riez said.
"It would be OK if he were paralyzed from the waist down. At least he could draw and eat on his own . . . " Dominguez said.
"To me, I think that his life was just beginning and it's already ended for him."
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Additional Information
How to donate
Contributions can be made to:
The Juan Martin Dominguez Fund
Utah Central Credit Union
25 E. 1700 South
Salt Lake City, UT 84126