Doctors say it is a miracle 8-year-old Joshua Brathwaite is alive.
The second-grade student was rushed to a hospital last week after he was hit by a stray bullet during a shooting outside his home in Concord, California. The bullet is still lodged in the boy's neck.
"I am happy to be home because I want to see my brothers," Joshua said in an interview with NBC Bay Area.
After spending three days in the hospital, Joshua is back home doing what he missed the most: playing with his brothers.
"They are supposed to play and ride their bikes and have fun, play video games and do things that he likes to do," said his father, Joshua Brathwaite Sr. "Not sit in the hospital with a bullet in his neck."
Last Friday — the day after his eighth birthday — Joshua was standing outside his house when police said family friend James Jarrard started shooting at another person.
"I didn't know what kind of gun, but he just pulled it out," the boy recalled.
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Joshua's father said the bullet ricocheted off the ground and struck the boy's neck.
"I just felt something hurting," Joshua said.
His mother, Sarah Barela, said Joshua clutched his neck and told her he was in pain.
Barela said Jarrard then fled the area.
"It made me so angry — just, you need to come back," Barela said. "Just help me. You just shot my child. Help me."
Joshua returned home from the hospital Monday, the same day someone spotted Jarrard in a Fairfield parking lot. While trying to escape police, the suspect was shot in the neck.
"Now he has a bullet in the exact same spot he shot my son," Barela said.
Doctors said they will eventually have to remove the bullet from Joshua's neck, but for now the boy has made a full recovery.
Meanwhile, Jarrard is in stable condition and will be booked into the Solano County Jail once he is released from the hospital.
