The 23-year-old stops mid-conversation as he winces in pain, clutching his upper thigh.

He places both hands on the armrests of his wheelchair and hoists his upper body straight up. The pain is unbearable. He calls for his father, seated nearby. The father — they’re in a Tim Horton’s — takes his son’s left leg from the chair’s footrest and stretches it out, pressing down gently on the knee.

After surviving a brutal gun attack in his former Mississauga neighbourhood earlier this year and being paralyzed from the waist down by a bullet that lacerated his internal organs and fractured his spine, the young man found himself outside an emergency homeless shelter in the GTA on Tuesday afternoon with all of his worldly possessions hastily stuffed into duffel bags and open cardboard boxes.

In the midst of his recovery and as he was regaining sensation in and some control of his leg muscles, he said, the Toronto Rehab facility Lyndhurst Centre — a part of the University Health Network — discharged him. They did so, he said, despite multiple requests for more time to find a suitable place for him to stay that could accommodate his needs — including a call from Premier Doug Ford’s office, according to the man and his family friend who saw the call to a member of the Lyndhurst team.

With nowhere to go, he said, Lyndhurst officials on Tuesday threatened to call security if he refused to leave. Then they put him in an accessible taxi, which ferried him to the shelter, he said.

“They didn’t even tell me (it) was a shelter,” he told the Star later that day, saying he at first believed he was being taken to a transitional facility, like one he had earlier visited and had hoped to be admitted to.

“I’m honestly scared to sleep there.”

The Star is protecting the man’s identity because he fears he may still be a target for the people who tried to kill him. There have been no arrests in what Peel Police confirmed this week is an ongoing investigation into the shooting. The Star spoke with the young man, his father and a family friend at length this week.

The young man says those in charge at Lyndhurst did not support his applications to transitional homes, and gave him no other options besides the shelter.

Gillian Howard, vice-president of public affairs at the University Health Network did not answer specific questions from the Star, saying in an emailed statement UHN “does not speak about the individual circumstances of anyone who has been a patient in our hospital.”

“We provide all the help we can to someone who has been admitted until they no longer need care and are discharged,” the statement said, responding to questions about general protocols.

“Discharges can be difficult for the person, their family and friends as an individual may now require more support than before they came to the hospital. We anticipate as much as we can and offer our knowledge of what’s available in the community but it (is) the person, their family and their friends who must figure out what happens next.”

The 23-year-old’s parents had moved to the U.S. for work when the shooting happened and were still temporarily renting the place where their children were living, including the young man, until they could support themselves. After the shooting, they gave up that rental place and the young man’s father is now travelling back and forth to the GTA, without a place of his own or a job here to help his son.

With critical medical appointments, the need for an accessible space and sky-high city rents, they have so far not been able to find a place to relocate him.

He has limited financial support, with Ontario Works providing a total of $700 monthly for rent and living expenses.

After hearing about his case, both Ford’s office and that of Councillor Kristyn Wong-Tam, who chairs the city’s accessibility advisory committee, have been working to help him. Both Ford’s office and Wong-Tam’s confirmed they have been in contact with the young man and those assisting him.

Family friends who have been helping pay for medical expenses out of their own pockets have created a GoFundMe page to raise money for his ongoing needs.

***

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Just before his 23rd birthday, the young man was jogging from his parents’ townhome for a late-night trip to Walmart to grab a few groceries — a chicken, chips, some Chinese dim sum. It was about 10:30 p.m. on Feb. 3, he said. On his way home, he said he was distracted by a black cat purring in his path.

The cat was startled by a passing car and he followed it behind some homes in the complex where he lived. Back out on an adjoining street, a black, four-door car passed by. He noticed the back seat passenger’s window was rolled down and the person seated there was peeking out at him.

Moving onto the sidewalk, he said he got a “bad feeling” like the men in the car “were looking for trouble.”

He, his father and the family friend stressed to the Star he has no gang involvement and there was no reason for him to have been targeted that day — he was just heading home with his food.

He took his headphones out and put his phone away, preparing to run. But before the former high school track star could take off, he said, the passenger got out of the car and just started shooting. The young man ducked, but the driver got out and started shooting too. He felt pinned down.

Taking a few running steps, he vaulted over a nearby backyard fence to escape the ongoing gunfire.

But as he bounded over, a bullet pierced his side, lacerating his kidney, travelling through his abdomen, hitting his spine and liver before exiting his right side. His legs were already useless as he hit the crunchy, snow-covered ground, dislocating his left shoulder.

“I yelled, ‘I’m not part of any gang. I don’t know who you are. Leave me alone,’” he remembered. The volley of shots only intensified, he said.

He said he heard his attackers talk about checking to see if he was still alive, and someone said: “kill him.” He started dragging himself towards a neighbour’s back door with his one good limb.

He banged on the door from a prone position. The man who answered looked down at him bleeding and said, “No, I can’t help you,” he remembered, and then slammed the door.

He lay still and pretending to be dead. He remembered his vision starting to darken at the edges as he lay in shock. As the sounds of sirens approached, he said, he could hear his attackers retreating, shooting as they went.

“‘God, if it’s my time to go, then let me go in peace,” he remembered thinking.

***

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He was rushed to Sunnybrook in an ambulance after a passing pedestrian directed police to his location in the snow.

Peel Police confirm they responded to the call just before 11 p.m. that evening and found a young man with a gunshot wound.

The rest is foggy in his memory as he drifted in and out of consciousness. He remembers seeing his own blood in the ER room. He remembers he didn’t want the nurses to cut off his favourite clothes.

He would be interviewed by police and, after several days, he said he was moved out of the ICU into another room at Sunnybrook. Eventually, he was transferred to the nearby Lyndhurst Centre, which specializes in rehabilitation after spinal cord injuries.

He said the team there discussed an initial May 1 discharge date, about three months after the shooting, but he understood it to be a moving target — if he did better than expected he might be discharged earlier or, if he was falling behind, his stay could be extended.

In the lead up to May 1, they said the stay would be extended for just two more weeks. When that deadline was up, he still didn’t know where he’d be staying. Officials started looking into the availability of beds at shelters, he said, telling him he was able to be independent now.

But he worried about being alone. He said one day he was left to go through his routines on his own and he almost hurt himself. Speaking inside the Tim Horton’s, he’s unable to finish this part of his story as he groans in pain from a bad spasm.

Overnight Tuesday, he was admitted to a hospital for treatment of what was recorded on his intake form as a “stage 2” “pressure ulcer” — a type of bedsore that is painful and can lead to serious damage if not properly treated or if continuously slept on. There are no railings on the bed at the shelter, he said, and no one to help turn him in the night to avoid aggravating the sore.

For the security of other clients, no one is allowed into the shelter to help him clean his wound or with other daily tasks, including changing his diaper, he and his father said.

“They let me go with a stage 2 pressure sore to a homeless shelter with a hard bed that can make it even worse,” he said of Lyndhurst. “It makes no sense.”

The young man stayed at the shelter Wednesday night, in excruciating pain after a day of meetings to seek help for his situation, and on Thursday was being reassessed in hospital in hopes of qualifying for a longer-term care facility.

A letter written by a director at the shelter, which was shown to the Star by the young man’s family friend, supported that reassessment, saying the facility was not initially aware of his “high” medical needs and that it requires “more supports than we are able to provide in the shelter at this time.”

The young man claimed Lyndhurst staff told one transitional facility he visited for an assessment before his discharge that he didn’t need that level of help. They failed to respond during the application process for another facility, he said.

“‘What if it was you or one of your kids?’” he said he asked the staff.

***

In high school, the 23-year-old loved running track.

After earning a top time in the 400 metres, he said, he qualified for the Youth Olympics — but didn’t have the money to go.

He said he dropped out of college before second year because of financial challenges but dreamed of saving up to own his own car, get back to training and making it to Tokyo in 2020.

He talks about challenging Canadian sprinter Andre De Grasse before setting his sights on record-setter Usain Bolt.

After demonstrating how he has regained control in part of his thighs, he suddenly squeals with delight. Leaning forward, the slight movement is barely noticeable but there: His sneakered left heel moving up and down, up and down.

For the young man, it’s a massive milestone.

“I’m going to be the fastest runner in Canada,” he says.

“It’s just a matter of time.”

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