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Miah Cerrillo: Uvalde shooting survivor smeared friend's blood on herself to appear dead

Cerrillo smeared a friend's blood over herself and played dead after terrorist Salvador Ramos killed 19 students and 2 teachers

UVALDE, TEXAS: A relative of Miah Cerrillo, a survivor of the Texas school massacre, has revealed the survival tactic the 11-year-old girl adopted as the shooting unfolded at Robb Elementary School, Uvalde, on Tuesday, May 24.

Cerrillo's family says that she smeared a friend's blood over herself and played dead after 18-year-old terrorist Salvador Ramos killed 19 students and 2 teachers. As per reports, she lay on top of her friend, who was still breathing despite being shot, and pretended that they were both dead. Cerrillo used the blood of another female friend to make herself look wounded.

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"Miah got some blood and put it on herself to pretend that she was dead. My sister-in-law said that [Miah] saw her friend full of blood, and she got blood and put it on herself. My brother said she had bullet fragments in her back," Cerrillo's aunt, Blanca Rivera, told Click 2 Houston. The fourth-grader, who witnessed her teacher and friends being shot to death, is severely traumatized by the event.

"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.' 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," Rivera explained.

The Washington Post reports that Cerrillo's left side, from her neck all the way down her back, was lacerated by small bullet fragments, and her hair was singed by gunfire. At the hospital, doctors disinfected and bandaged the cuts but decided against removing the fragments. She was discharged Tuesday evening and spent the night seized with fear, telling her father to get his gun because "he's going to come get us."

As per The New York Times, "The first report of a gunman approaching the school came around 11:30 am on Tuesday. Moments before, the gunman, identified as Salvador Ramos, 18, had crashed a pickup truck in a ditch by the school after having shot his 66-year-old grandmother in the face in her home, just a few streets from the school." Ramos' text messages stated he was in an argument with his grandmother about his phone bill. 

Ramos made his way to the school with one AR-15 rifle and reportedly bypassed a school resource officer and two cops on his way in. After entering the premises, the shooter barricaded himself in a class full of children for one hour. The SWAT team struggled to break through and had to wait for an employee to fetch a key and give them access to the classroom.

"He walked in unobstructed initially. He was not confronted by anybody," Victor Escalon, regional director for the state's Department of Public Safety, said at a news conference. Albert Vargas, an electrician at work near Robb Elementary School, recalled, "His face was blank. There was no expression there. He looked like nothing mattered but the mission he was on. He fired the shots, ran, jumped a fence, and headed towards the school," reports The New York Times.