(The Hill) — An 11-year-old student who survived the mass shooting in Uvalde, Texas, on Tuesday says she covered herself in a classmate’s blood and played dead to protect herself from being shot.
Miah Cerrillo told CNN on Friday that she dipped her hands in the blood of a dead classmate after the shooter left her classroom and wiped it on herself to play dead in case he came back.
Cerrillo was treated in the hospital for wounds caused by bullet fragments, and her mother, Abigale Veloz, says the girl is “traumatized.”
Miguel Cerrillo, her father, confirmed to Fox News on Thursday that she has been discharged from the hospital, but added that she is “freaking out” after being in “survival mode” during the shooting.
The shooter, 18-year-old Salvador Ramos, walked into Miah’s classroom — where the fourth-grade students had been watching “Lilo and Stitch” — just as a teacher was walking toward the door to lock it.
Miah said that Ramos looked one of the teachers in the eye and said “Goodnight” before shooting her and then opening fire on the class.
Ramos allegedly then went into an adjoining classroom where Miah said she heard gunfire, screaming and downbeat music, which she described as “I want people to die” music.
The girl and a friend dialed 911 from the phone of their dead teacher and asked the police for help.
According to CNN, Miah began crying as she talked about the police waiting outside the school, saying she didn’t understand why the officers did not come inside and rescue them.
According to her aunt Blanca Rivera, Miah was deeply shaken when the reality of the shooting hit her on Tuesday night, hours after the incident.
“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. We’re home, and she’s just crying and having a panic attack,’” Rivera told Click2Houston on Tuesday.
Miah asked not to speak on camera because of her trauma.
Veloz has organized a GoFundMe to pay for Miah’s medical expenses and therapy, writing, “she will need a lot of help with all the trauma that she is going through. my daughter is amazing person and is a very good sister to her siblings. we will need help with her medical expenses that were caused by the bullet fragment on her back.”
Rivera said, “At this point, we just have to pray and ask God to help us move forward through this situation. I know it’s traumatizing and having an 11-year-old go through this, I can’t imagine what she’s feeling.”