They burst his skull and damaged his brain in Malgrat de Mar (Barcelona) in 2015. He spent six months in a coma and was hospitalized for a year. He left without talking, eating or walking
Two young people served five years in prison and were sentenced to pay 1,263,956 euros, which they have not paid
A blow, straight to the head, knocked him down instantly. Sergio didn’t see it coming. He fell to the ground unconscious from the first punch. But more came. Two people got out of a car and, in a matter of seconds, “exploded” his head by kicking it. She was 21 years old. She arrived at the hospital without a heartbeat.
Eva, her mother, at home, oblivious to everything, found out hours later. Her son, who in the early hours of November 22, 2015, had gone out with his friends to the Tropicana nightclub (Malgrat de Mar, Barcelona), was fighting death in the hospital. “No one told me. Not the doctors, not the police…”, she still doesn’t understand. “When I arrived at the center at noon, my son had already had two head operations., they had had two heart attacks, they had to operate again and remove the frontal bone,” he pauses, and continues, “they froze the forehead bone and he was without it for three months. They took it away because his brain was going to burst.”
After six months in a coma and a year in hospital, Sergió left the hospital. He couldn’t eat, walk and barely speak. The judicial fight was added to the fight for his life. The first still the battle; the second was closed in 2020, five years after the beating it suffered, when the Supreme Court confirmed the five-year prison sentence for the two young people who got out of a car and they kicked him viciously. The other aggressor, who punched him first, was sentenced to a three-month fine for a crime of injuries.
The sentence of the two young people sentenced to prison terms included the payment of 1,263,956.19 euros – includes the sentence to which OPEN CASE has agreed -, but the money, necessary for rehabilitation that Social Security no longer covers, never arrived.
Sergio, in the recovery process after receiving a beating that left him in a coma.
| Given by his family to OPEN CASE.
“My son entered the hospital on November 22, 2015 and left on November 11, 2016, a year later,” his mother begins. “What happened?” she continues, “Sergio doesn’t remember anything about that night… But because of the witnesses, the friends and the investigation itself, we have been able to reconstruct everything that happened.”
The beating
“Sergio was in the cloakroom…”, Eva reconstructs. “He was with two other boys, older than him. They leave the premises. At that moment, someone tells my son: ‘don’t go back, there’s a fight, they’re hitting someone’… ‘My friends aren’t there.’ here, let’s see if it’s going to be them, my son said…'”. Sergio came out. “Before getting to the fight, a boy punched him, and my son fell to the ground unconscious, it was a KO,” says Eva. “He didn’t get into the fight. He didn’t get there. He didn’t have scratches or torn clothes, nothing… When he was unconscious, two boys got out of a car and started kicking him in the head“. He was seen and not seen, “a few seconds”, but the beating was almost lethal.
Since 2015, the young man’s entourage has been crying out for justice. He woke up from a coma six months later.
| Given by his family to OPEN CASE.
“Mother”
“We were lucky,” Eva explains. “Despite everything, despite where we are today, we were very lucky.” She got out of the ambulance with a thread of life. “The doctors say that he arrived almost dead and that, operating, with luck, was going to be ‘vegetable’. That… because he was a 21-year-old kid, if he gets older they won’t even operate on him.”
He was intervened on several occasions. Intubated, with a temporary tracheotomy, he entered a coma that lasted six months, but he woke up. He opened his eyes, but everything had changed: “he left the hospital without mobility, I had a probe in the stomach to eat…”, his mother stops, “I even wore a diaper“After a year in hospital, the day he was discharged he said his first word: “mom.”
“When he fell, his skull broke, it opened, and the kicks went directly to the brain”
Sergio’s mother
“With the first punch, which is when he falls to the ground, Sergio would have had whatever it was… but not the injuries he has, the forensic experts said,” the woman explains to this medium. “The irreversible ones that he presents are made because When he fell, his skull broke, it openedand the others’ kicks went straight to the brain.”
Three people involved. A victim, all to spin. While he was fighting to live, the trial started. “The same day, in the courtroom, the boy who punched him first turned around and asked for forgiveness.” He was convicted only of a crime of injuries, it was not proven that he had been part of the subsequent beating. His testimony, that of the witnesses, allowed the identification of the other two attackers, those who got out of the car and, in a matter of seconds, kicked mercilessly.
In 2020, five years later, the Supreme Court confirmed the sentence of the other two: attempted murder, five years in prison. They were also sentenced to pay compensation exceeding one million euros. In jail they declared themselves insolvent. The money never arrived.
At the same time, came the helplessness of Social Security: “They told us that There was a set time and certain rehabilitation sessions and Sergio couldn’t have any more.“.
“We will only be able to face a year of rehabilitation, not much more”
Sergio’s mother
Eva’s tireless fight served to get some oxygen: “The State He gave us 56,000 euros four years ago. It is a help to the victim… He helped, but if they have to give me a million or so, it’s not even the peak, it’s not even 200,000.”
The arrival of that income allowed Sergio to go to the Guttmann Institute, a neurorehabilitation hospital. She learned to talk, eat, breathe. “She left the diaper,” but still (and still) needed help, “she started eating food, first purees, then some solids…”, although always with supervision. There were unthinkable advances. Sergio, for years, eased the pain by focusing on his recovery.
“The money is running out,” laments Eva. “With him being 21 years old when they gave him to us and, paying -then- 1,400 per month for three days a week…”, she calculates, “Sergio is now 29 years old and is about to finish,” she laments . “There are about 12,000 euros left, we have reduced days, there are only two… We have one year left of Guttman, We will only be able to face one year of rehabilitation, no more“.
The rehabilitation sessions have represented great progress for Sergio, but they are not covered by Social Security.
| OPEN CASE
Countdown
Eva has no income. Sergio needs “a person with him 24 hours a day.” No matter how hard he tries, the math doesn’t work out. In addition to the treatments, there is the investment in adapting the house – although not with everything you would need – to be able to care for you. On a day-to-day basis, we add private rehabilitation – which is fundamental – which amounts to a low (after reducing sessions) of 800 euros per month. “I don’t know how we can do it.”
He has knocked on all the doors. The first, that of the Generalitat. “It’s under study,” she says, “only I have asked for rehabilitation“Since we do not receive compensation, Social Security assumes it.”
He speaks without hate, although sometimes it is difficult, “my son was destroyed, the truth is…”, but he focuses on finding solutions. “I couldn’t give 600,000 euros either. It’s a high amount, but it’s just that one of the two convicted men has only given me 100 euros in eight years. I understand that they can’t give everything, but since they have done the damage and it has been cheap for them because they have already been released from prison, at least of what you generate, give Sergio half, right?”
Sergio, with his brother Kike, whom he always took care of; On the right, Eva with her two children.
| Given by his family to OPEN CASE.
Eva’s battle is completed with Kike, her other son. “She has cerebral palsy, diagnosed six months after birth. For him, for example, rehabilitation didn’t work for him, but it did for Sergio.”
Sergio, the youngest of the two, but who has always acted as a caregiver, already chooses his clothes, plays the Playstation and has some autonomy, although he is dependent on all daily activities. “I don’t think he can walk alone, but in the water he can dive.” The fight begins again: “I have spent the little money we have to check whether, after leaving prison, the insolvency they declared remains the same.” The process is slow, tedious and Sergio is on countdown.
Eve, battle without ceasing. Sergio continues fighting to live. At 21 years old everything changed course. He was a football lover, “now,” Eva smiles, because the positive attitude is the hallmark of the house, “now he regrets it, he says that he is sure that he would have played the ‘Kings League’.” She insists, “the only thing I want is for the aggressors, the State, whoever, take care of at least the rehabilitation. That my son can go every day like all the sick people who are like this do.” Sergio had challenges. Dreams. Because of a beating, now the main thing is to live.