PHILADELPHIA -- A year ago Tuesday, Ivan Cuevas wasn’t expected to survive.
The Philadelphia high schooler, then 16, had been shot in the back of the head, running from a gunman who opened fire on a group of students outside Lincoln High School. Rushed to St. Christopher’s Hospital for Children, he scored the lowest possible rating on a standard coma assessment scale.
But as doctors threaded a breathing tube down his throat, he gasped — a sign that he still had some activity in his brain stem, pediatric neurosurgeon Tina Loven realized. Despite Ivan’s slim chances, Loven and her colleagues decided to operate.
