Atlanta

Big Boi gives service puppy to girl paralyzed in bounce house shooting

ATLANTA — A girl who was paralyzed when someone shot her while playing in a bounce house is getting some big help -- from a music superstar!

Antoine “Big Boi” Patton, who's busy with the release of a new album and a new tour, slowed down long enough to show some love to Abriya Ellison.

“My brother saw her story that morning and was like, 'Bro, we got to do something for this little girl,'” Patton told Channel 2’s Lori Wilson.

Big Boi's passions are music and the bulldogs he breeds at Pitfall Kennels. He wanted to give Abriya a puppy, who she quickly named.

“What are you going to name your puppy?” Wilson asked Abriya.

“King!” she replied.

Abriya was shot while playing in a bounce house in April and paralyzed from the waist down.

She just finished three months of intense therapy and fell in love with the service dogs at the hospital.

Now, she has a dog to call her own. One that her mother, Andreauna Douglas, said will help her recovery.

“She’s been asking for it for the longest and I know that a puppy that she can take care of and now she has responsibility, it’s going to do nothing but help her,” Douglas told Wilson.

“I’ve been born ready for a puppy,” Abriya said.


TRENDING STORIES:


“One thing that struck me about Abriya is that her energy and her spirit was just up,” Patton told Wilson.

“Now she’s going to have to walk this dog, so she’s going to have to get out here and get to walking,” Douglas said.

“There’s nothing like having a companion or a service dog, something therapeutic that you can love on, that can love back on you. She’s been through a lot and to see how strong she is now, that was just like ‘Oh my goodness,'” Patton said. “She's definitely inspiring and it just touched our heart, so we’re just trying to do what we can do to help.”

Big Boi and his brother James have agreed to take care of whatever vet care her puppy King will need.

They also agreed to pay off her GoFundMe needs for her medical bills and even pay to have her bathroom made handicap accessible.