Boy struggles for normalcy after shot in head

OREGON CITY, Ore. – In just one moment, Austin Stokes' life changed forever.

He was just 12 when his friend and neighbor, Jeremiah Riley, got a hold of his dad's 12-gauge shotgun, left out from duck hunting the day before, and aimed it in Austin’s direction.

"The kid said (he) just wanted to blow up the refrigerator to scare him," Austin's mom, Shelly says.

But instead, he had shot him in the head. Austin nearly died.

"Even till this day when I hear a siren, I cry," his mom says. "It's just very hard – that noise. You'll never get that picture out of your head, of your child laying there thinking: Is he dead? What did he ever do to deserve this? He went over there to play."

Austin loved riding his bike and going to the skate park, but now he can't do any of that. Even the slightest misstep could kill him: Only a flap of skin is covering half of his brain. He now has to wear a helmet to protect his head from further injury.

There is so much about Austin that is different after being shot. He's obsessed with lights, turning them on and off. And he's fidgety.

"I'm a hair addictor," he says. "It means I pick every single hair off the couch."

He didn't do that before being shot.

And with virtually no filter, he can be really funny.

"(My mom) would love to be a monobrow on somebody's forehead," he says.

His mom doesn't quite agree, however. "I would not like to be a monobrow," she responds.

After months of rehabilitation, there's very little Austin can safely do. He needs help going to the bathroom every 15 minutes and he needs antibiotics every six hours. It leaves his parents little time to contemplate their new reality.

"And you have a couple minutes to think and all that stuff buried comes right up," says Austin's father, Adam. "It's as if somebody just slapped you across the face. You go, 'Oh my God, my son was shot in the head with a shotgun!' And it starts hitting you."

The Stokes aren't anti-gun. They're not pro-gun control. They're just parents who desperately want people to see what carelessness with guns did to their son and what it did to all of them.

"This kills," Adam says. "They're not a game. Austin's learned that the hard way."

Austin's shooter, who was 13 when this happened, wound up serving five days in juvenile detention and his family may have to pay the Stokes $100,000 to cover their medical expenses.

The shooter's parents never faced any charges. Under Oregon law, parents can't be held criminally responsible for what their kids do.