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Old 03-25-2010, 02:39 PM   #28
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UPDATE - One week after middle school beating, mother of comatose girl hopes for a miracle

Thursday March 25 2010, 4:21pm


FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. (MCT) - Hilda Goaty Ratley is hoping for a miracle. Any sign of improvement in the condition of her daughter, Josie Lou Ratley, will do. So far, nothing.

Josie Ratley, 15, remains in a medically induced coma at Broward General Medical Center, more than a week after prosecutors say an enraged teenager she barely knew confronted her at a Deerfield Beach Middle School bus stop and repeatedly stomped on her head while wearing steel-toed boots.


“I want my child to come home,” Hilda Ratley said Wednesday at the hospital. “This whole experience has been a nightmare.”

Ratley said she was able to find some encouragement on Tuesday during a hospital visit from Michael Brewer, 15, a one-time classmate of her daughter’s who recently survived a life-threatening assault. Brewer suffered burns over two-thirds of his body when he was set on fire at an apartment complex about a mile from the school last October.

Surprising doctors, Brewer staged an impressive recovery and was out of the hospital before Christmas. Doctors recently told him he won’t need to check in with them for six months, though he still undergoes physical therapy.


Brewer and Josie Ratley once shared a science class at Deerfield Middle.
“She’s my friend,” Brewer said, according to family spokeswoman Terri Lynn. The visit was a private meeting between families, Lynn said. “Their message was, ‘We’re here for you. We know what you’re going through.’

Hilda Ratley said she was grateful to Brewer’s parents and grandmother for offering tips to help them through her daughter’s hospitalization, including recording familiar voices to play at Josie Ratley’s bedside.

“They’re wonderful people,” Hilda Ratley said of the Brewers. “They’ve given us a little bit of hope.”

Josie Ratley was waiting for a school bus on campus March 17 when, prosecutors say, Wayne Treacy, 15, attacked her without warning. Treacy is facing a first-degree attempted murder charge and is being held in a juvenile detention center.

Also being held as an accomplice is a 13-year-old friend who prosecutors say knew Treacy intended to harm Ratley and led him to the victim.

The girl’s lawyer, Jonathon Marne, has said she did not take Treacy’s threat to harm Ratley seriously and did not witness the attack.

Other friends of Treacy said Wednesday they knew he sometimes struggled to control his anger, but they never would have expected him to follow through on a threat of violence. The Broward Sheriff’s Office said Treacy was incensed by text messages Ratley sent that made “disparaging” references to his brother, who committed suicide last October.
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