The family of a Texas school shooting survivor has described how the 11-year-old saved herself by smearing blood on herself and playing dead when the gunman started shooting.
On Tuesday (May 24), an 18-year-old stormed Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, Texas, and opened fire on a 4th-grade class. Nineteen children and two teachers were killed in the horrific massacre.
One of the students inside the classroom who survived was Miah Cerrillo. In an interview with NBC Los Angeles, Miah's aunt and godmother Blanca Rivera explained how her 11-year-old niece made it through the attack alive, and how she is struggling to cope with the trauma of what she witnessed.
Rivera told the outlet that it was midnight when her sister-in-law called and told her what had happened.
"Around midnight my sister-in-law called me and she was just crying, like 'I think it just hit Miah. I think everything came to reality now,'" she said.
She went on to say how Miah's teacher - Irma Garcia - and many of her classmates were killed in the deadly attack, which she only survived by a combination of luck and quick thinking.
"Miah got some blood and put it on herself so she could pretend she was dead," Rivera said. "It's too much for me to play that scene over and over again, but that's what my sister-in-law said is that she saw her friend full of blood and she got blood and put it on herself."
Rivera went on to say that her niece had still been injured, saying: "My brother said she had bullet fragments in her back."
However, after being treated at the hospital she has since been released and taken home by her parents.
While her physical injuries may be on the mend, Rivera made it clear that psychologically and emotionally it would be much harder for Miah to recover from her traumatizing experience.
"At this point, we just have to pray and ask God to help us move forward through this situation, I know it's traumatizing as it is," she said.
