An 11-year-old survivor of the massacre at Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, Texas that killed her classmates and two teachers recounts her terrifying experience and how she stayed alive.
Miah Cerrillo told CNN that she and her classmates were watching Lilo and Stitch in their classroom when the teachers, Irma Garcia and Eva Mireles, were informed there was a shooter in the school.
One of the teachers went to lock the door but the shooter was already right outside the classroom – and shot out the window of the door.
Miah, who was too afraid to speak on camera, said everything happened so fast.
Her teacher backed into the classroom, the gunman followed her in, made eye contact with one of the teachers, said, “Goodnight,” and then shot her.
11-year old Miah Cerrillo told me the gunman looked her teacher in the eye, said "goodnight," and shot and killed her.
The whole class was watching.
Then he started killing Miah's friends.pic.twitter.com/OYsbXnJqzb
— Nora Neus (@noraneus) May 27, 2022
That’s when he opened fire, shooting the other teacher and many of Miah’s friends.
The fourth-grader said bullets flew all around her before the shooter went through a door to the classroom next to hers.
Miah heard screams, then more gunshots. Once the shots stopped, she said the gunman began playing loud, sad music.
Miah was terrified the gunman would return to kill her and her surviving classmates so she dipped her hands in the blood of a dead classmate lying next to her, smeared it all over herself, then played dead.
She and a friend were able to get their dead teacher’s phone and they called 911, telling the dispatcher, “Please come … we’re in trouble.”
Miah was treated in hospital with fragment wounds. Her mother said her little girl is traumatized, can’t sleep, loud noises startle her, and clumps of her hair have started to fall out.
Miah’s mom told CNN she had taken her daughter out of school the morning of the shooting for a doctor’s appointment. She offered to let her skip the rest of the day but Miah wanted to see her friends since it was one of the last days of classes before summer break.
She was dropped back off at Robb about an hour before the shooting.
