Remember this story very well. Haitian kid named David Opont. Miraculously he lived.
Burned Boy Points To Alleged Attacker, Tells Tale of Torture
RONALD POWERSSeptember 11, 1990
NEW YORK (AP) _ The 12-year-old boy set ablaze by a neighborhood bully in an abandoned building pointed out his alleged attacker in court Tuesday and told a tale of kidnapping, torture and immolation.
David Opont also testified that the attacker laughed at him when he rolled in the snow to put out the fire.
David attracted national sympathy after the March 7 attack with reports he resisted efforts by his attacker to make him take drugs.
″He tried to put what he was smoking in my mouth,″ David said, speaking in Creole through a translator. ″I shook my head because I didn’t want to take it. He set fire to my shirt.″
David, a native of Haiti, suffered massive burns. Doctors initially gave him a 50 percent chance of surviving. After numerous skin grafs he left a hospital last month. Celebrity hospital visitors included former President Reagan, Bill Cosby and baseball star Dwight Gooden.