Boy Recovering From Violent Kew Gardens Stranger Assault: Reports

KEW GARDENS, QUEENS — A six-year-old boy who was sitting on his grandfather's porch in Kew Gardens when a stranger violently attacked him is now on the mend, news reports say.

Long Island resident Jeremy Portnoy was outside his grandfather's home waiting for a pizza the afternoon of Oct. 10 when a homeless man suddenly picked him up and slammed his head on the concrete, leaving him critically injured, according to CBS New York.

Brain hemorrhaging, two skull fractures and a collapsed lung kept the boy in the intensive care unit of Cohen Children's Medical Center for several days, the family told the L.I. Herald.

At first, he was unconscious and intubated, the boy's mother, Tobi Portnoy, told CBS New York.

"The days we were in the hospital were very hard for him," she said.

He regained his speech in just four days and was discharged from the hospital, she told CBS New York. He now wears glasses, because brain swelling left him with a "wonky" eye, she added.

"To me, it's nothing short of a miracle. As much as you might see and hear all about the bad, but there's just as much if not more good out there," the boy's father, Yaakov Portnoy, told CBS.

Now he's recovering at home in East Meadow, where the family moved from Kew Gardens four years ago, according to the L.I. Herald.

"He has to sit and recover, which is hard when you're six and everyone else is running around," the boy's father told the L.I. Herald. "He likes video games, so now he sits and plays video games while the fractures are healing."

The boy's attacker, 35-year-old Laurance Gendreau, faces charges of attempted murder, assault, harassment and endangering a child, the L.I. Herald reported. He is receiving psychiatric treatment and has been put on medication, Gendreau's defense attorney told the news outlet.