Crime Stories with Nancy Grace - TERROR IN THE HEARTLAND: BOY, 5, HURLED OFF MALL OF AMERICA BALCONY, PREDATOR STALKED MALL

Episode Date: November 26, 2025

In Minnesota, the Mall of America, is not just a place to shop, being the largest mall in the Western Hemisphere it is also a tourist attraction. Located on the spot where the NFL Vikings and Major League Baseball Twins play in Metropolitan stadium, in the mall's amusement park a seat from Metropolitan Stadium marks the exact spot Harmon Killabrew's 520th MLB homerun landed. Spanning four floors, locals come to shop, while tourists come to gawk at the sheer size of the mall.  On a chilly April morning, snow still on the ground, Kari Hoffmann, her 5-year-old son Landen, and a friend and her son Will, arrive at the mall early, before all the stores open. Standing outside the Rain Forest Cafe, third floor, the boys play on a fake rock when a man Kari thinks is an employee, walks up to the boys. Asking if it was ok for the boys to be on the rock, the man tells the moms, very nicely, it's ok "you can be here." The man then leans down and whispers something in Will's ear. Later details uncover he says, "If you don't get off this rock, I'm going to throw you off.   As the boys nervously giggle, the man reaches around Will, grabs Landen and throws the 5-year-old over the third floor railing, Frozen for a moment, Kari Hoffmann screams as her boy is falling more than three stories to the ground, the shaken mother runs down the escalator to her broken little boy telling onlookers to pray as she runs.  Falling 40 feet to the ground, Landen Hoffmann breaks his skull, facial bones, both arms and a leg as well as a life threatening injury to his vena cava vein running to his heart. Two nurses who work in a cardiac unit happen to be near when this horrific event happens and perform CPR on Landen. He is taken to the Minneapolis Children's Hospital where he is immediately rushed into life saving surgery, and from there he is placed in the intensive care unit, doctors unsure if he will survive the trauma.   While stunned onlookers are encouraged by Kari Hoffmann to pray for her son, back up on the third floor, a 68-year-old man tackles the suspect as he runs away, slowing the man down enough so even though he jumped on the railway, cops are able to arrest the man.  This terror is caused by 24-year-old Emmanuel Aranda, a man known to the mall with a history of arrests for trespassing, cited for throwing items at mall patrons from the top floor of the mall. Weeks later, he returns to the mall, this time harassing two women and throwing things in a mall restaurant.   Joining Nancy Grace today: Kari Hoffmann, Landen's mother, Author of "Miracle at The Mall" Dr. Thomas Coyne - Chief Medical Examiner, District 2 Medical Examiner's Office, State of Florida; Forensic Pathologist, Toxicologist, Neuropathologist; X: @DrTMCoyne\ Dave Mack - 'Crime Stories' Investigative Reporter See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

This is an I-Heart podcast. Guaranteed Human. Crime Stories with Nancy Grace. Terror in the heartland. A beautiful little boy, just five years old, hurled off the Mall of America balcony. A predator stalked the mall before throwing the child straight down. I'm Nancy Grace. This is Crime Stories. I want to thank you for being with us. Five-year-old Landon Hoffman arrives at Minnesota's Mall of America with his mom for a day of celebration.

But within minutes, an unsuspecting child will cross paths with an evil stranger. Joining us, Landon's mother, to tell us what happened that day at Mall of America and about her journey since this horrific tragedy. listen. And I saw the suspect pick up Landon and just kind of tossed them over the edge. I don't really think I could put into words what I just the feeling. On a chilly April morning, snow still on the ground, Carrie Hoffman, her five-year-old son Landon and a friend and her son Will arrive at the mall early before all the stores are open. Standing outside the Rainforest Cafe on the third floor, the boys are playing on a fake rock when a man Carrie thought was an employee walks up to the boys, asking if it was okay for the boys to be.

be on the rock. The man tells the moms very nicely, it's okay, you can be here. The man then leans down and whispers something into Will's ear. That from our friends at K-A-R-E-11 and join me, Landon's mom, Carrie Hoffman, author of Miracle at the Mall. Carrie, thank you for being with us. Why did you take your children to the Mall that day, Mall of America? Landon had just finished preschool and we were going to go there and do something fun, celebrate the end of preschool, beginning of kindergarten. It's supposed to be a fun day. You know, Carrie, it's really interesting that your idea of fun is taking the children to the mall

because I try to discourage my children from being mall rats, but Mall of America is different. Mall of America isn't just a mall where all you can do is shop and spend money on material things with all the other, you know, you're bombarded with materialism. But at Mall of America, it really is a tourist spot. I was researching they have Nickelodeon Universe, an indoor theme park, sea life, Minnesota Aquarium. They have the amazing mirror maze, the Rock of Ages, Black, Light, mini-golf, 50 restaurants, events, activities. It's seven acres. The Nickelodeon universe has a seven-acre indoor theme park, 24 rides like roller coasters and family-friendly attractions. They have the aquarium with marine

life. They have that mirror maze. It's reflections and twists you try to get through. Mini-Golf. They have that Crayola experience. They have Museum of Illusions. And over 50 restaurants. There's also fly over America, the escape game. I mean, I could go on and on and on about what's in the Mall of America. So when I first heard you took your children for fun at the mall, I'm like, what is fun about wandering endlessly around and around and around stores? But it's actually a lot of fun. What did you have in mind that day? Well, it's really close to my house. So it's only about 20 minutes. And so we can go there and just do the one thing. It is that big and has all of that stuff. But that day,

we were just going to that Crayola experience. We knew it was on the third floor. And what is that? You just go, you go, you pay to go in there. It's a separate, you know, experience. And you go from station to station, creating things with crayons. So you can like melt crayons and do spin arts. You can pretend you're a crayon and dance like a crayon. There's like a whole crayon slides and things everything has to do with the creole the creola crayon just an ex you just go around and spend the day in there. All we had at our mall for the twins, which we thought was just amazing was a Lego land and they had some rides and they had 3D movies and like when it would

rain, you'd get wet or just and we just thought that was the biggest thing ever was to go to the Lego land. It was just one big room and a play pit, a play pit. And my son was already getting tall and I had to bring ID to show he was under 12 because he was already taller than me. And, you know, it's just the dichotomy, because those are some of the happiest memories that I have of taking them and their friends and playing in the ball pit and riding those crazy rides with them in a mall. And the dichotomy between your happy intentions and what happened that day, it just, it hurts to think about it. Tell me what happened.

Well, we were there before it opened. So it opened at 10 a.m. and we were there probably quarter to. So you could park and you could walk in and you could go wait outside the experience until it opened. And so that's what we were doing. We were kind of just standing on those rocks. outside that rainforest cafe, which is right next to the Kerala experience, waiting for it to open. And we were just leading over those rocks, looking at that alligator, trying to see if it would turn on. Usually it goes up and down and steam comes out, and it wasn't doing that because it wasn't on yet.

It wasn't open. But the boys were just like looking at it, waiting for it to come on. And when we were doing that, a man had walked up and put his elbows on the rock and leaned over and was talking to the boys. quietly in their ears. And I was right there with the other mom that I was with and we were talking and the boys, as this man was whispering in their ear and they were giggling. And so whatever he was saying was funny. But it did strike me as odd on why is he leaning over and whispering. So I did ask him if he was going to turn the alligator on. See, it was winter or it was April, but it was snowing that day. And we all had on winter coats and boots. And he had on short sleeves and blue jeans. So I I thought that he worked there. And so I asked him if he was going to turn the alligator on and he said, you know, kind of just mumbled to me. No, you know, I don't know what he said.

Just no, no kind of mumbles. I said, well, is it okay if we stand here? And he's like, oh, yeah, that's okay that you stand here. Just like it reassured me. He was nice. He looked kind. It wasn't, I didn't, I had a warning when I went into them all, but I did not have a warning standing there talking to him.

Carrie, you just mentioned you had a signal, a warning. when you first went into the mall. What happened? Yeah, I just had a, it was driving into that parking ramp. I just had a overwhelming, like, sense that I could be in danger, something weird could happen today. It was just like some odd feeling that I didn't feel comfortable with. So I just prayed and I asked God to go before us to keep us safe everywhere we go.

I asked for angels to come with us, to guard us and keep us safe. I also pled the blood of Jesus around us because I know. know the enemy can't cross the bloodline so I just pled the blood of Jesus and then I thought okay let's go we're going to go have a fun day and so I had the warning enough to pray that keep us safe today but when I was talking to the man I I believe it or not did not feel like I better get away he was reassuring me I felt like I honestly feel like the enemy was working through this man and he was reassuring me and I was feeling comfortable because he was tricking me I did not know that. It's amazing to me, Carrie, that you felt that premonition and you actually acted on it

by praying. You know, now my twins take themselves to school, which I really miss driving them to school. But the last thing they would hear would be a prayer over them every morning as they got out of the minivan to go to school. Yes. And I can just imagine you pulling into that parking ramp and getting that feeling. And you know, a lot of people, poo-poo feelings. And that's completely erroneous because our feelings, our hunches, premonition, so to speak, are based on thousands of thousands of years of evolution. Something tips us off, or as in your case, you believe it was a higher, a more divine warning. And I'm thinking about what you said, Carrie, that the man was talking to the boys and they were giggling.

Listen, everybody. I ran down and found the first officer I saw the entire time my concern was for Landon. Whispering so the moms can't hear. The man who is not an employee as previously thought tells the boys, if you don't get off this rock, I'm going to throw you off. The boys nervously giggle. When the man reaches around Will grabs Landon and throws the five-year-old over the the third floor railing. Oh, my stars. That original sound was from our friends at K-A-R-E.

You're standing there with the other mom. What did you observe, Carrie? Yeah, actually, Will was right next to the man, and he went around Will and grabbed Landon, took him under the armpits, and threw him over the balcony, and it all happened so fast. Like, we were not that far from the balcony probably, I don't know, 10 feet. He ran that fast and threw him before I could even understand what just happened. As soon as he did it, though, I screamed, no, devil, take your hands off him. Somebody just threw my baby and went screaming down the escalator stairs at somebody through my baby. I just went as fast as I could. This man did fall. Were you on the third floor, Carrie? Yes, I was on the third floor. We're showing an image now inside Mall of America.

And you see the bottom, the ground floor, the next floor, but then the escalator takes you up even higher. Look all the way up near that glass roof to the third floor. That is from where this child was thrown down to that hard, hard, base floor. you start screaming and do what, Carrie? Ran as fast as I can yelling somebody through my baby, somebody through my baby, everybody come, help, pray. As soon as I got down there, I saw him, or I didn't see him, and I yelled, where is he? There wasn't many people there, like I said, it wasn't open yet.

And one woman pointed where he was, and I ran and picked him up. And she goes, no, you have to put him down, please put him down. You know, my first instinct was to pick him up. I don't remember what he looked like or anything. I just saw him and scooped him up. And right behind me, two nurses happened to be on the second level waiting for a store to open like I was. I am brooding Landonon to live and take a breath.

So they were giving him CPR and they said, we got a heartbeat. And I said, yes, we got a heartbeat. Everybody pray. And I looked up and there's three levels of people all looking over the balcony. And I just looked up there. And I said, everybody pray. He has a heartbeat. And then they said, he just took a breath.

And I said, yes, he took a breath. everybody pray and I just begged everyone went around staring to pray this is what we're doing we're praying and we're rooting Landon on to live and not die and that's what we were doing as the five year old is amazed by the rainforest cafe the perpetrator closes

in he leans down whispers something to the little boy seconds later the mall will erupt in chaos joining me is Landon's mom who describes running down an escalator begging people around her to pray for her son. As she reaches Landon, picks him up, and is still praying

that he is alive. But at that moment as she is praying, Landon is dead with no heartbeat. The guy, Ms. Hoffman, that threw your son over the balcony on the third floor of Mall of America, had a reputation. in the mall of throwing things off the balcony, throwing things into restaurants, yet he was still there. He had not been banned

from the mall. I mean, I don't know what the whole background is on that. I never wanted anything to do with this guy. I know that he had issues there, and I think he was banned. I think there was a law at the time that you could only be banned for up to six months, maybe

one year. And so I mean, that has been changed now, but I don't know. I don't like to go down on that role, that whole of all the things I have to do with this man because he is no part of our life. You know what? You're so wise, Carrie. I try not to think about the guy that murdered my fiancé because it's wasted energy. Yeah. It's completely wasted energy and time and can take me down a dark hole.

Let's try it. It's very difficult to get out of. Yeah. Listen to this, everybody. Falling 40 feet to the ground, Landon Hoffman breaks his skull, facial bones, both arms and a leg, as well as a life-threatening injury to his vena cava running to his heart. Two nurses who work in a cardiac unit happen to be right there when it happened and are able to perform CPR on the little boy. Joining us right now is a renowned medical examiner. The chief medical examiner, District 2, medical examiner's office, state of Florida. He is a forensic pathologist, a toxicologist, and a neuropathologist. Wow. Dr. Thomas Coyne, thank you for being with us. I'm hearing a lot of medical jargon. If you can make some sense of it for us, we're told Landon falls 40 feet,

and remember age 5, age 5, if that makes any difference. Balls 40 feet is thrown. He didn't fall. He was thrown 40 feet to a hard surface, the bottom floor Mall of America. It looks like it's tile, which is probably on top of cement. 40 feet to the ground, breaks the skull, facial bones, both arms, and a leg. And this is the thing I don't understand. Life threatening injury to Vena Kava running to his heart. heart. What does that mean? Sure. Those are types of injuries that I will see in a high impact car collisions or injuries where the body absorbs a lot of force. And the vein we remember from school, the blood is carried in our body through arteries and veins. Arteries carry the blood away from

our heart to all of our organs and the veins deliver the blood back to our heart from all of our organs. The vein of Kava is the largest vein that we have in our body and it courses from our pelvic region back up to the heart. And so all of the blood that comes from our feet and our legs comes together into the vina cava and as the vina cable travels back up to the heart along the spine, all of the organs in our body send veins that communicate with the vina cava, allowing all of that blood to come back to our art to get rid of the carbon dioxide and get new oxygen. The vena cava, like I said, is a large vessel.

And so when you, when the body absorbs a large amount of force, whether it be a car crash, or in this case a fall from great height at impact the body will absorb that force it will get stretched and become deformed and as it becomes deformed those blood vessels are stretched beyond their normal elastic capacity you know like a rubber band if you stretch it too far it will break well the same thing can happen to a blood vessel and sometimes what happens is the inner layer of that blood vessel may tear allowing blood to escape that inner layer in between the layers of the blood vessels where can slowly grow and expand. And so in this case, that injury may not have been recognized at first. They probably realized he wasn't bleeding into any of his body cavities. They attended to all of his injuries. And that other small injury in that vein could have slowly grown over time being a threat to rupture at some point, especially if he started to do normal activity again.

We see that sometimes a vascular dissection is called. And again, when I see it in the vein, very often, high-impact collisions, I see it from an abdominal trauma, and in this case, more likely when he fell and impacted the ground. Wow. Okay, so the Venekeva runs directly to the heart? Yes. It will go right into the bottom of the heart, and that's where all of the blood draining from our lower half and our torso will get back to the heart. Okay. We always hear about the femoral artery or the jugular.

or the carotid artery, you don't hear a lot about the vena cava, I guess because it's protected by the rib cage. Correct. It's protected by the body. So all of the organs sit over it. And again, you very rarely see an injury like that unless you have extreme force. In this case, of course, rare to see this, a person survive, but nevertheless, that that fall from three floors is enough force to cause this kind of injury deep inside the body.

You know, this child was thrown from the third level. It's way up there near the skylights of the Mall of America. I mean, that's scary. And I'm curious, he I've learned was attended to almost immediately by two nurses who happened to be at the mall that race down and start resuscitating him or trying to. to, how is it different to resuscitate a child versus an adult? Well, it may be a little easier in the sense that, you know, a child isn't compensating for underlying heart disease, right? So many of us, as we get to be in our 40s and 50s,

we will accumulate heart disease over time, and that may make the heart less responsive to resuscitation. A child is much younger, but also the injuries themselves may not be as severe in a child as opposed to an older adult who may have more internal bleeding just because of the fact that their mass is greater, they're not as plastic or pliable. So their ability to withstand such a force will be less than, let's say, a much smaller child. But in particular, a child, children also tend to be a little more resistant to loss of oxygen. So, you know, the classic story of the child who drowns and then is resuscitated, even, you know, maybe up to 30 minutes later, and is able to still regain normal brain function.

So it may very well be that they have a little more plastic ability than adults do. And so sometimes in children, it's a little bit easier to get that return of normal spontaneous circulation without having long-term brain damage. Crime Stories with Nancy Grace. You know, Dr. Coyne, I have handled. cases where I found in the autopsy, a lot of bruising to the body, and was told by the medical examiner like yourself that that bruising occurred during CPR. This child already suffered multiple broken bones. How do you resuscitate a child when he is covered in breaks

and injuries? Sure. Sure. I mean, it's a tug of war. You're trying to provide resuscitation or enough force to the chest because mind you when you're when you're doing CPR what you're effectively doing is compressing the body to allow the body to squeeze the heart so you can pump blood through the body so you want to do it with enough force that actually allows the ribs above to compress down upon the heart to allow blood to flow and so you you take into consideration of some injuries may very well occur in adults who are less plastic right there their ribs aren't, children have much more cartilage. As we get older, our bones, the cartilage will turn into bone. You'll also have more mineralization or calcium deposits in your bones, so they're

a little more easy to break. So in adults, I see very commonly rib fractures, sternal fractures in persons who administer CPR. But in children, they're more plastic, so you're less likely to get a rib fracture. But nevertheless, at the end of the day, we're trying to save this person's life. So you take into consideration, yes, I'm going to have some injury. But more importantly, can I get this person's heart restarted? Can I get blood flow back to their body? Then I can worry about treating all of those injuries. You know, Dr. Coyne, I've never heard a victim refer to as plastic, more plastic, less plastic. What are you saying? Sure. So, you know, I'm more pliable, right? So again, children, and I'm sure we all are growing up, I was able to do a split and do things

I certainly cannot do in my 20s and definitely not now in my 50s. I bet you could. Our bodies, our bodies, I wouldn't want to try, but our bodies, especially the ligaments, the tendons, all of the cartilaginous parts, they're much more pliable as a child. As we get older, as they begin to ossify or form bone or accumulate minerals from aging, calcification, calcium in particular, your bones become less pliable. Your ligaments become less pliable. That's why it's much more easier to tear a ligament as we get older.

So children have more pliability. So when they fall and their bodies deform on impact, right, as you can imagine, if a bone, let's say, is being impacted, that bone will bend due to the force, and it will bend up to the point upon which it can't bend anymore because it's not elastic. So it will fracture. A child's bone in certain areas have more cartilage, so it's more pliable. So it has more give, if you will. So maybe less likely to fracture than, say, a person who's in their 20s or 30s.

So that's what I mean by more plastic. They're a little more pliable. But also plastic in terms of their ability to respond to injury. They're still growing. You know, they're healthy. Their organs have no plaques or disease that we have that makes us harder to compensate for injury. A child is much more readily capable of compensating for an injury than an adult. Dr. Coyne, how does a fall cause brain injury or a crash?

I mean, I know that they do. but how does that happen? What happens to your brain that leaves you with a permanent brain injury? Sure, there's two things where that happen. Well, let's first break it down. There's primary injury, and the primary injury is the effect of the actual impact itself. So there's the direct impact when your head strikes a hard object or a hard object strikes your head. That will, number one, cause the force of that object to be transmitted throughout your brain.

And so your brain will literally move within your skull, you know, side to side, front to back, slamming into the skull itself. The brain is very soft like a jello mold. So it's very easy for the brain to bruise and get injured. That's the first thing, the direct injury. The second thing is the brain will also rotate around a central axis. So as you imagine, if you kick a soccer ball as that soccer ball is kicked, it will roll, it will spin. The brain wants to spin too after impact, and it will spin or rotate within the actual skull itself. That rotation stretches all those tiny nerve fibers, and if it stretches it too far, they can tear.

And so critically, if the bottom of our brain where our brainstem sits, it's a part of our brain that, you know, allows us to breathe without having to think about it. We're not sitting here thinking about breathing in, breathing out. If fibers in those areas are torn or injured, the person can stop breathing and they can die off. all of a sudden. So brain injury does those two things primarily, but it's the secondary injury that's more dangerous, and that's the swelling that occurs. Because, you know, I'm sure we've all gotten punched in our arm before. You may see initial redness or a little bit of bruising, but over time, swelling occurs, and sometimes you can get a significant amount of swelling. Looks like you have a softball on your arm, right? That same thing happens to our brain, but the problem

is the brain is within the skull, and it has nowhere to go. So as the swelling occurs, pressure builds up and that pressure is directed back on the brain itself, which can physically compress the brain structure is destroying them, or more importantly, prevent blood flow to those areas. Because blood vessels are compressible also. Okay, you know what? Whoa, whoa, whoa, wait, wait, wait, okay. Remember, I'm just a JD. I'm trying to keep up with you.

But you're saying, okay, so the brain is hurt like a bruise and it starts to swell. And then there's nowhere for it to go, like your arm can go out. I remember every time I got an allergy shot, my arm would swell up like two of them, like an egg. And my dad would actually, I'd look over at him. He'd be driving me home from the allergy doctor, and there'd be tears going down his eyes because he'd look over and see my arms swelling up. I'm trying to think about how that connects to the brain.

The brain tries to swell up, and it hits the skull and has nowhere to go. So it starts damaging the brain and killing the brain cells. because they're up against the skull. Is that right? Yeah, the pressure. Okay, so that's why they put a shunt, a hole in the head. A shunt or they'll literally cut a piece of bone out of the skull to relieve the pressure. So that secondary part is oftentimes most dangerous.

And imagine this, if it's so severe, if the pressure inside the brain or skull, excuse me, is so high, if it's above our blood pressure, no blood can flow into the head or into the brain. and that's where things get really dangerous. And so managing that part, the swelling of the brain is the most difficult part after an initial injury. And oftentimes that's what is the fatal injury, is the secondary injury or swelling. Dr. Coyne, are you married? Yes, yeah. I'm not in, I'm not shopping.

Okay. I've already raised one. I don't want to start all over with another one. I'm just curious. I got two boys. brilliant, but I bet when you go home, your wife is like, did you take out the trash? Okay, do you? No, yeah, yeah. And my kids, my kids always lower eyes at me too. I've gotten actually very good at them. Because I'm literally hanging on every word you're saying. I'm just trying to

take it all in. Okay, let me ask you this. We talked about the resuscitation. When I have reason to believe when mom ran running down the escalator, you know how sharp those things are, the steps, she's running, screaming to all three levels, pray, pray, pray.

When she gets to her son, Dr. Coyne, I think he was dead. I think he was dead at that moment. How can that be? You know, Death, how we label death, usually we say when a heart stops feeding, right? But, and his heart may very well have been stopped.

But the brain tissue is still alive until it exhausts all of his energy, all of its oxygen. And so, although he may not have been conscious and may not have been able to remember those events, his brain may very well have still been functioning, may have been receptive to his mother's voice, to certain sounds around him. It's hard to know because the problem. always is in these cases is our inability to remember. I use this bad analogy of a person who goes out drinking at nighttime. They have, you know, they go to parties and then they wake up the next morning and they can't remember a thing. It isn't that the events never occurred the night

before. It's just that the alcohol prevented them from being able to remember the events. So in this way, you know, the injury is preventing you from encoding those memories. So if you ask a person days or, you know, a long time after, hey, do you remember the events? Do you remember your mother speaking to you? You may not be able to remember anything, but it doesn't. mean that at that moment, you couldn't hear her voice, couldn't hear her prayers. And who knows, maybe that gave him enough strength that, you know, keep on going. But how do you go from being dead on the floor of the Mall of America to being alive again? I mean, I think you're going to give me some medical explanation, but it sounds like a miracle to me.

It is. It's a miracle that those two nurses were there to initiate C.E. because the real key was just getting blood flow back to the brain, was to allow blood flow get back to the brain and the vital organs so he could then be transported to the hospital and have all those injuries, you know, attended to. That was the miracle, really. It was making sure that his heart, although it stopped temporarily, was restarted and life can go on. One last thing, Dr. Coyne. The mom kept talking to him. even when he had been, he was dead, his heart not beating. And we've, I've always heard this anecdotally.

I don't have any statistic to tell me this because no one apparently believes the near death or after life experiences. But we have been told over and over and over that people can hear, it's the last sense to leave you, that people can hear even after they're declared dead and they can hear, and they can, when they're resuscitated, they can recall what was being said around them. Is there any way that Landon heard his mother? It's quite possible, yeah. Because as I mentioned, although the heart stopped beating, the brain tissue is still,

all those cells throughout our brain, all those nerve fibers are still there, potentially active. And so if those little fibers in his ears are hearing sounds, they're transmitting those signals to his brain. Again, he may not have been conscious or may not be able to remember those signals, but I'm assuming it's quite possible that he was still receiving those signals. Without warning, a 24-year-old man lunges at a toddler in one of the fanciest malls in America, lifting the boy up off his feet and hurling him over a 39-foot balcony.

The child slams onto the tile below. Ms. Hoffman, I know that you were already out trying to get into that ambulance at the time. standers by, grab this guy, tackled him and held him as he tried to escape. So I want to go back to your story. Carrie, what happened when you got to the hospital? When we get to the hospital, he goes right into a life-saving room where it's just a big empty room and you go in there and all the doctor, they told me this was a miracle that all the doctors that they needed to be there were there.

The bone doctor, the brain doctor, the pick you surgeon, everybody who they needed to be there were there and they wheeled them into the room and they all started working on his body immediately five or six doctors all doing different setting his bones stopping the bleed removing his spleen and I got to go right in there with them I couldn't see so I stood up on a chair and I just was praying that the God would use those doctors to put him back together and I was praying out loud which I don't normally do and they let me do that at one point they did say okay everybody quiet because it was just chaos and they're trying to stop all the major injuries and they said if you don't need to be talking please don't be talking um but i considered myself need to be talking

at that time because i wanted lannon to hear me and i wanted him to fight to be alive and so they they did let me i wasn't doing it annoying or rude i was trying to let lannon hear me praying to stay alive and that's where we were that's that life saving room where they just put him back together then he goes across the hall to the MRI to see the extent of his brain injury. That's what you do right when you get there. After that initial response, and as you call it, the life-saving room, what happened after that to Landon? Then they rush him across the hall to give him an MRI to see what extent he has of his brain injury, what are going to be the consequences.

And right from there, they rush him upstairs to surgery. where they can do not just life-saving surgery, just every other surgery he's going to need, which was the entire day of surgeries. Guys, this is the beginning of a very long journey. Listen. Landon Hoffman has surgeries for his broken arms, a broken leg, and skull fractures,

and his spleen was removed. He remains in intensive care for four months. He undergoes more than a dozen surgeries and even broke his leg for a second time during his rehab while doctors and nurses are trying to get him out of bed and walking. The break reveals his Bana Cava vein, running to his heart is barely hanging on. Had he tried to walk on it, he would have died.

During his recovery, a GoFundMe page is launched for medical costs. Crime Stories with Nancy Grace. Ms. Hoffman explained to me what happened when he tried to stand up. This is after over a dozen surgeries, he even broke his leg for a a second time during rehab. But the break itself was a miracle of sorts because it revealed his Vena Kava vein, running to his heart, was barely hanging on. And had he been able to walk, they were trying to get him up and walking, he would have died. Yes. We didn't know the Vena Kava parked until the day, until four months later. He probably

probably broke his leg the second time two months in. And we were in there for four months. And so after, you know, six to eight weeks after your, that's how long it takes for a bone to heal. And he had broken it from the initial fall. After it was healed, that's where he was able to stand up and do rehab to get it to, you know, strong again. And that's when he broke it a second time. He was on so much pain medicine. And he didn't know standing up that he was just so fragile. And his body was working so hard to heal everything else. I I just think it broke a second time. But at that, when we found that out, we were so devastated because we wanted to get out

of bed. We were in bed for six to eight weeks at that time, just feeling like, okay, can we just stand up? Can we move at all? We just couldn't because how fragile he was. And so when we could finally stand up and then the learning broke a second time, we were devastated. And that's where I was asking God, why?

Why do we have to stay in bed now another six to eight weeks? Not only that, now he has to have a more. permanent cast. And so I could choose between an external fixator where they take screws, three screws or four screws down his leg, take it from his skin and drill it into his bone to hold it into place. I could do that or I could do a hard cast all the way from his foot all the way up to his chest. And then he would really not be able to move. Plus he couldn't cut out of bed to use the bathroom. So I would have to change him all the time. And having that big long, that big hard cast from his foot to his chest was not an option for me. So we wouldn't.

with the external fixator, which gave them more movement, but it was awful. It was painful. It was torture. I hated that. We found out at the end of our stay four months later that the Vena Kava was the main issue that the doctors could not figure out. It was closing to the size of a pinhole. And that's when we learned, good thing he broke his leg a second time, because had he not, he would have been up walking around, and that could have been devastating. And so I knew there was a reason we broke the leg because I thought God did not take us through this miracle and keep him alive to go through even more pain like this, just petty pain. So I knew there was a reason, but I didn't know why. And now I know why. As we mentioned, the recovery has been such a long

road. Recovery is a long journey for the entire family. Gary watches as her son's personality changes, where Landon had always been a sweet and kind child, injury to the frontal lobe of his brain causes his personality to shift, and he becomes angry and mean. The injury causes his personality to switch back to sweet and kind, only to change again to angry and mean. Carrie, I had a relative very close to me. Suffer a traumatic brain injury after a crash, and their personality did change. Yeah.

Tell me what happened. with Landon's personality change? You know, when I found out in the hospital halfway through or whatever that this was going to be, I knew I was going to get him back walking and talking. I was going to have Landon back. But they did tell me he will have a slight personality change. We don't know the extent of it and that he will be more impulsive as he grows up because that's what he injured is his frontal lobe.

They also told me that it was a good thing. If you could injure any part of your brain, this is the part you would want to injure because people, brain surgeons can remove this part of your can still be alive and have a good quality of life. And so at the time when they told me that, I didn't care that he was going to have a different, you know, personality or be more impulsive. I was going to get him back. I was just so thankful. But everything they told me when we did get home and try to go to kindergarten like two weeks after we get home from the hospital is when I saw that he was in and out of being nice and mean and his eyes were like bulging out and then and then and then I would just have to teach him

Landon we don't do that this is not we don't act like that he just had to learn all over how to be kind again and six this is we're now going on six years and I do think Lanin is totally back to the kid he was supposed to be he is loving life he is so kind so loving loves people he's back now but it took a long time to learn that and I would say at least three years of that in and out of mean. I want you to hear Landon for yourself. Listen. So,

wait a one, how to be strong. They are one week, but they are strong. Yes. Can they love the me?

Yes. Jesus. He loves me. Yes. He loves me. Yes, he does. That is Landon with a feeding tube in his nose singing a beloved song. Jesus loves me, this I know.

And here is more from Landon. My name is Landon. I'm nine years old. I'm the guy that got thrown at the third story at the mom. third story at the Mall of America. And that was the part where God came in and helped. It was a miracle where I'm alive. God healed all the parts of my body.

I'm perfect. I would say that I want people to know my story because I want them to believe in God and go to heaven. That is from our friends at Eagle Brook Church. That's amazing, Carrie. That is amazing. Tell me about Landon now. He is a walking, talking miracle.

He loves life. This story is not something sad. He is not scared of people. He's not scared to be in public. He knows that he is the boy that God used to show the world a miracle, and he is proud of it. and he will tell all of his friends, do you believe in God? I hope you believe in God

because if you don't, you won't go to heaven with me and I want you to go to heaven. And if you don't believe it happens, look at me, I have all these scars and God saved me. That's who he is. He's just walking around

showing everybody what a miracle he is. That is the power of God. That's who our God is today and Lannon is living proof that God is real. And he is powerful. And he listens when you call on him. Here is more from Landon.

When your friends ask you about what happened to you, what do you tell them? I tell them that it was me that got thrown, and they say, really? And then I show them everything on me. That from our friends at Good Morning America, you know, I just want to see Landon speaking one more time. Let's watch. My name is Landon. I'm nine years old. I'm the guy that got thrown at the third story.

at the Mall of America. And that was the part where God came in and helped. It was a miracle that I'm alive. God healed all the parts of my body. I'm perfect. I would say that I want people to know my story because I want them to believe in God and go to heaven. This is a miracle.

That from our friends at Eagle, church. Carrie, you told me earlier off air that you felt Christ with you, particularly at one moment. Could you describe that? Just when I was in that hospital room, I was held in a perfect piece the entire time. I mean, I intentionally didn't have TV on or outside noise of the world. I asked people not to tell me what was going on out there because I wanted to be close to God. And I was honestly held a perfect piece that entire four months. I knew he was there. I felt him there.

It was just, I was never scared. Doctors would come in and out and some of them would be maybe telling me to throw in the towel. I even had one told me I can't maintain this warrior status forever. But I did not waver. I felt God's presence in that hospital room the entire four months, and he kept me in that perfect piece. And I felt Landon was going to be okay, and he was never going to die, in my opinion. An incredible story of a miracle. Carrie describes it all in her book, Miracle at the Mall.

Carrie, thank you for telling us your story, Landon's story, and giving us your witness. Thank you so much for having me on the show. I so appreciate being a part of this. We remember an American hero, Deputy Sheriff Sidney Carter killed in a line of duty, survived by her parents, grieving parents, Annette and Jerry. American hero, Sheriff Sidney Carter. Nancy Grace signing off. Goodbye, friend.

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