A 1-year-old boy who was shot on Lake Shore Drive last week continues to make “slow but steady progress” and has started to move his extremities, his doctor said Monday.
Kayden Swann remained on a ventilator at Lurie Children’s Hospital, but Dr. Marcelo Malakooti said his medical staff is “hopeful” that the toddler may be taken off the machine “at some point in the future.”
“The entire Pediatric Intensive Care Unit team, including nursing, social work, family services, respiratory therapists, physicians, and surgeons have provided the best care and support for Kayden and his entire family,” Malakooti said in a statement.
Though Kayden’s initial prognosis seemed grim, his health has gradually improved since the April 6 shooting. Doctors removed Kayden from a medically-induced coma Saturday.
Kayden was shot in the temple while he rode in the back seat of a car on Lake Shore Drive during an apparent road rage incident. The driver of an SUV shot at the car Kayden was traveling in while both vehicles traveled north, Cook County prosecutors said. The altercation started when the SUV tried to merge near Soldier Field and nearly struck the car Kayden was riding in, prosecutors said.
Contrary to initial police reports, there was no evidence, that Jushawn Brown — the driver in the car Kayden was in — fired his weapon or displayed it during the incident, prosecutors said.
After Kayden was shot, a bystander rushed him to Northwestern Hospital before he was transferred to Lurie.
Brown, 43, is out on bond for a felony gun charge in connection with the shooting.
Brown, of Englewood, is in relationship with Kayden’s grandmother, prosecutors said.
The driver of the SUV has not been taken into custody.
