Overview
- A powerful illegal firework detonated in front of the child at Berlin’s Emstaler Platz on New Year’s, causing catastrophic leg and head injuries and requiring lifesaving care at Charité.
- Doctors performed more than 40 operations, kept him in an induced coma for over a month, and placed a tracheostomy and an artificial bowel opening before discharging him to rehabilitation in April.
- He now walks without a wheelchair, has returned to school, and continues follow‑up in Charité’s trauma clinic, though significant scarring and psychological effects persist.
- Police and prosecutors are investigating a then‑17‑year‑old suspected of igniting the device in a fiberglass launch tube within a crowd, with a January examination reported and no charges announced to date.
- Sister Cansu Karki gave her first public account, criticizing the pace of the probe and calling for stronger public awareness and enforcement, as the family plans to spend this New Year’s abroad.