A LITTLE TROOPER: Amanda Chauan gives the thumbs-up as she leaves the hospital for a fun-filled day with dad. (Tomas E. Gaston)
Evidence markers litter the street where 9-year-old Amanda was shot Friday. The child’s mom says the innocent tot is now nervous about playing outside. (Christopher Sadowski)
Bronx dad Gustavo Chauan got the best Father’s Day gift of his life today — his 9-year-old daughter, who was wounded by a stray bullet while playing outside Friday, got to come home from the hospital.
Little Amanda Chauan was released from Jacobi Hospital, flanked by her happy mom and dad, who was holding a string of big balloons for her.
“She’s doing good,” Gustavo Chauan said before planting a kiss on his daughter’s forehead. “She’s going to be fine.”
The doting dad spent the night at the hospital so they could wake up and share Father’s Day together.
Amanda, an energetic third-grader who loves basketball, was playing in a parking lot near Bailey Avenue and West 234th Street near her home in Kingsbridge at 9:30 p.m. Friday when a man on a bicycle fired six shots into the crowd.
One of the rounds grazed her stomach, causing a serious wound.
The girl then stumbled into the lobby of her building — where neighbors had ducked for cover — and collapsed, residents said.
Her 5-year-old brother, who was also playing outside, was unharmed.
After talking with witnesses, police began looking for Billy James Jr., 17, to question him in connection with the shooting, sources said.
Officials said they do not know the motive for the shooting.
Amanda’s mother, Magaly Cintron, said her little girl was nervous about now playing outside.
“I’m a little afraid” for her future, Cintron said. “She doesn’t want to go back home.”
Cintron said she keeps re-playing the shooting over and over in her own head.
“I heard the gunshots from my apartment, and I ran down downstairs,” she said. “I just want the cops to catch him. My daughter was an innocent bystander. She was just out riding her bicycle.”
Additional reporting by Kirstan Conley