The family of a cancer survivor says her first-ever NFL game was spoiled when a Buffalo Bills fan “purposely” pushed the young girl because she was cheering for the opposing team.
Mia DeCamilla’s parents told CBS affiliate WIVBthat their 8-year-old daughter, who became a San Francisco 49ers fan because of her dad, was shoved by a “drunk” Bills fan at the game featuring the two teams on Sunday, Dec. 1 at Highmark Stadium in Orchard Park, N.Y.
While she was not injured in the incident, DeCamilla fell from her seat, and was so shook up that she wanted to leave the game early.
“The guy purposely walked through and was pushing through people,” Mia’s father Mike DeCamilla told WIVB about the fan who claimed that he was going to “push through all these Niner fans” while walking down a snow-covered part of the stairs. “I get that it’s busy and hectic, but he had to be six-foot and she is less than 100 lbs.”
Mike added, “He actually bumped me and my son a little bit and then got past me and pushed her, almost slid off the stairs, and hit her side on the chairs.”
Mia, who came to the game with a sign that read “I beat cancer,” told WIVB that she was excited and “full of energy” before arriving at the stadium. But after the unpleasant incident, she said she doesn’t want to return to the venue “because I felt uncomfortable and I just don’t feel ready to go there anymore.”
Mia recalled how she and her dad would bond over 49ers games while she was undergoing treatment for liver cancer, which she was diagnosed with in January 2022, according to a GoFundMe fundraiser.
“Me and my dad in the hospital, we’ll watch football together, and then when I come home, sometimes for breaks, like in the hospital, when I had cancer, I will sit down and just relax and watch football all day, that’s what I like and how I made my team,” Mia told WIVB.
According to the outlet, former NFL player Antonio Brown reached out to the DeCamilla family and was planning to FaceTime Mia to help raise money for her medical care.
