UVALDE, Texas – Briana Ruiz dropped off her 9-year-old son Daniel Garza at Robb Elementary School on Tuesday, as she does every two days during the school year.
I didn’t know that that particular school day would change their lives forever and that the child they left would never be the same again.
Daniel was inside his classroom when an 18-year-old gunman broke into the school while armed with an AR-style rifle.
In an interview with ABC News, Daniel said he could see the gunman through the window of his class and watched as his teacher, Elsa Avila, quickly took action.
ABC News reports that Avila locked the classroom door and killed the man while telling the students to remain silent.
Daniel’s mother said her teacher’s quick actions may have been the ones that saved the lives of her son and other students.
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“Personally, I can’t thank my son’s teacher enough, because I feel that what he did saved their lives,” Briana said.
The gunman had pulled the handle on Daniel’s classroom door, but was unable to open it, according to a report in The Washington Post. It wasn’t long after the gunman fired several shots through the glass of the door.
Avila was hit twice by the shot, but survived. Another student was hit in the nose by a bullet, reports The Post.
Authorities said the gunman later went down the hall and barricaded himself inside a fourth-floor classroom and opened fire. He was inside the classroom for more than an hour before Border Patrol officers shot him.
Daniel was not injured in the shooting, but his mother said it will never be the same as before.
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“The same kid I left that morning, I feel like a part of him stayed there because when I got him back, he wasn’t the same anymore,” Briana told ABC News. “I know it will take time and it will be a long road to recovery, especially for him.”
The massacre at Robb Elementary claimed the lives of 19 students and two teachers. One of the victims was Daniel’s cousin and his mother’s niece.
As the Uvalde community works to recover from this horrific incident, Briana told ABC News that more needs to be done to ensure schools are safe for her child and others.
“Unfortunately, more needs to be done to ensure that our children are safe and secure, even just having to go to school to receive their education,” he said.
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