This is the 30th shooting at a K-12 school in just the first five months of this year.
A 9-year-old boy recalled the terrifying ordeal of having to escape through a window to get away from the gunman who killed 21 people (19 students and two teachers) at Robb Elementary School last Tuesday.
According to CNN, the mass shooting is the deadliest school shooting since the 2012 Sandy Hook massacre. It is the 30th shooting at a K-12 school in just the first five months of this year. Daniel, who is just 9 years old, alongside his mother, Briana Ruiz, told the outlet the 18-year-old gunman fired several shots into his classroom after being unable to enter after their teacher locked the door. First, the young child hid "under a table next to the wall." At the time he said he could see the gunman through the door's window. "I could still see his face," Daniel said. "I could see him staring at people in front of me." Later the young boy climbed out of a broken window to escape.
9-year-old Daniel began "hiding under a table next to the wall," and said he could see the gunman through the door's window.https://t.co/QLhUnEs3lv
— CNN (@CNN) May 30, 2022
“I was scared and nervous, because the bullets almost hit me,” he told The Washington Post. “Some of us, the ones thinking he could see us, they acted like we got shot and stuff. They were playing dead.” The boy's teacher Elsa Avila was the one who reportedly locked the classroom door and played dead on the floor while telling students to remain quiet, according to ABC News. Daniel’s mother believes that it was the actions of the teacher that saved many children's lives. “I personally can’t thank my son’s teacher enough, because I feel what she did saved all their lives,” Briana said.
The family of an 11-year-old girl who survived the #Uvalde shooting says the 4th grader put blood on herself and played dead after the gunman entered her classroom https://t.co/SqmW307DgP
— philip lewis (@Phil_Lewis_) May 26, 2022
While her son was miraculously physically uninjured during the incident, the scars will forever remain on his conscience. “The same child that I dropped off that morning, I feel like a piece of him stayed there because when I did get him back, he wasn’t the same anymore,” Briana told ABC News. “I know it’s gonna take time and it’s gonna be a long road of recovery, especially for him.” She confessed that she knows that he will never be the same as he was before. More needs to be done to ensure schools are safe for her child, and for others, she added. “Unfortunately, there has to be more measures taken to ensure that our children are safe and secure, even just having to go to school to get their education,” she said.
References:
https://edition.cnn.com/2022/05/30/us/uvalde-texas-elementary-school-shooting-monday
https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2022/05/27/uvalde-school-student-survival/
Cover Image Source: YouTube | KSAT 12
