With new CDC grant, Houston trauma surgeon to study gun violence like it's a disease

For 200 days, Dr. Bindi J. Naik-Mathuria thought her patient, Sir Romeo Milam, might die.

Sir Romeo was 5 years old when he was struck by a stray bullet from a gunfight outside his Sunnyside apartment while watching television with his mother and grandmother in 2018. Naik-Mathuria, trauma director at Texas Children’s Hospital, said he had a spinal cord injury caused by the bullet entering his body at a dangerous angle.

Movies and television show bullet holes as just that — a hole, but that entry point is just the tip of the iceberg, said Naik-Mathuria, a former member of the Mayor’s Commission on Gun Violence.

“With bullets, there is a ‘blast effect.’ One bullet can affect multiple organs and vessels,” she said. “We don’t hear about the ones that don’t die — they’re often paralyzed or have lifelong pain, need an ostomy or have disabilities.”