A 6-year-old boy in Connecticut sustained serious burns when a neighbor doused a tennis ball with gasoline, ignited it, and threw the flaming ball at the child’s face.
The incident occurred while Dominick Krankall was playing in his backyard in Bridgeport on Sunday, April 24. An 8-year-old boy, who had taken gasoline and a lighter from a shed, bullied him and persuaded him to come closer, as reported by NBC New York.
“As soon as he walked down the stairs, the bully called his name and lured him over around the corner,” said the boy’s sister, Kayla Deegan, recounting the incident to the reporter.
“In a matter of seconds he came back around the corner screaming, saying, ‘Mommy, they lit me on fire! They lit me on fire!’ “
Kayla mentioned that the act was deliberate and that the neighbor had previously bullied her brother.
“What he did was pour gasoline on a tennis ball, took a lighter, lit it up and just chucked it right at my brother’s face — and then ran away from him and watched him burn,” she stated.
“Two months ago, under the bully’s mother’s supervision, he was pushed into a wall and fell to the floor. And again, the mother refuses to admit her kid did it.”
Dominick was swiftly taken to the burn unit at Bridgeport Hospital for treatment and is currently in recovery.