DeAndre Hopkins’ rise from poverty and violence to NFL stardom is among the most inspiring stories in the league, but it was his mother who had to deal with the most and prevailed through it all to get him and her to this point.
Now, her story may be getting to the big screen.
A feature film based on Sabrina Greenlee, Hopkins’ mother, is currently in the works that will reportedly cover the story of a single mother who survived multiple abusive relationships and recovered from a chemical attack that left her blinded, but didn’t deter her from raising her four children.
The attack occured when Hopkins was just 10-years-old when the girlfriend of a man Greenlee had dated for three months ambushed Greenlee. She was unaware the man she was dating had another girlfriend.
Details via USA Today:
“Sabrina!” The shout startled Sabrina Greenlee, who had just found her boyfriend at the home of another woman on a July day in 2002. Greenlee turned and … whoosh! The boiling chemicals, a mixture of lye and bleach that had reached 400 degrees Fahrenheit, seared her body.
She fell to the ground, the skin rapidly peeling off her face, neck and back. The cheating boyfriend picked her up, put her in a car and dropped her off at a nearby gas station.
“He left me there to die,” Greenlee said. “All my skin came off of my body. I was laying out there, dying. There was blood all over this woman’s store.”
The station’s attendant locked the doors and called an ambulance, which took Greenlee to the local hospital. From there, she was flown to a medical center in Augusta, Ga., where she spent three weeks in a medically induced coma while doctors patched her face with skin grafts.”
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Along with the skin grafts and permanent scarring, the attack left Greenlee completely blind in her right eye and partial vision in her left eye.
The woman who attacked Greenlee pleaded guilty to assault and battery with intent to kill and was sentenced to 20 years in prison.
Through Greenlee’s recovery, she began working as an advocate for domestic violence survivors, operating S.M.O.O.O.T.H., Inc. (Speaking Mentally, Outwardly Opening Opportunities Toward Healing).
