Six-year-old Kansas City boy burned in fire pit accident gets surprise gift from Lionel Messi

KSHB 41 News reporter Braden Bates covers parts of Jackson County, Missouri, including Lee's Summit. Send Braden a story idea by e-mail.The Kansas City community rallied to help six-year-old who recently fell into a fire pit in his neighborhood while playing with friends. Christian Holmes recently got two surprises — one from a legendary soccer player and another when he was told he could go home from the hospital.Holmes is an athlete. While only six, he loves flag football, soccer and swimming. His four siblings also participate in several sports.It's fair to say sports pulse through the family's house.About three weeks ago, Christian suffered burns to a large section of his body. For two-and-a half weeks, he lived at Children's Mercy Hospital."The burns were pretty extensive to his backside, and so I think we're going to have to let him lead us where he wants to go, and how fast he wants to recover," Andrea, his mother, said.Even in the hospital, sports found their way into Christian's temporary home. The World Cup matches on television throughout the day helped during medical procedures, bandage changes and around-the-clock care."Thank goodness for the World Cup," Christian's father, Matt, said. "That has provided such a good distraction."His parents said Christian's interest in the games gave them a chance to recharge."A very encouraging sign for Christian that he wanted to watch soccer and wanted to keep up with what team's playing today, who's winning, who scored that goal," Matt said.Soccer has long been central to Christian's life, and so has his favorite player, Lionel Messi. The family got to see Messi play about two years ago in Children's Mercy Park in KCK. Since that match, they've followed the career of one of the greatest soccer players in the sport's history. "One of the first things he said to us after he was burned is that he ruined his Messi jersey," Andrea said.While Christian recovered, the Kansas City community was working behind the scenes."We had a lot of people kind of behind the scenes working to surprise us," Andrea said.The surprise turned out to be a signed Messi jersey."They came in with that jersey and we had no idea, so we were just as shocked as Christian was," Andrea said.Now back home, Christian said the gift gave him something to look forward to as he recovers."Makes me really happy," he said. "I really wanna meet him." Christian has a more immediate goal — getting back on the pitch himself."Passing my ball to the teammates on my team and blocking all the balls," Christian said.Christian's parents said he has a long road to fully recover, but he's doing well."He's the fifth kid," Andrea said. "He's the youngest kid, so he's used to chasing people and and keeping up with brothers and sisters, so we know he's so resilient. We long for the day where we can look back and be like, 'Wow, that that was a tough time in our lives,"' Andrea said. Christian's family wants to thank all of those who have supported his recovery."I know that Kansas City is special, but I think being on a world stage like during the World Cup and for fans coming to Kansas City and being able to see what kindness is, I think that's life changing for people," said Andrea. This story was reported on-air by a journalist and has been converted to this platform with the assistance of AI. Our editorial team verifies all reporting on all platforms for fairness and accuracy.