(Family photo of Miah Cerrillo)
Eleven-year-old Mia Serilo, who survived a fourth-grade massacre at Rob’s Elementary School in Uwalde, Texas, said she smeared her friend’s blood on herself to look dead if the shooter returned.
She spoke exclusively to CNN about her horrific experience that day, but refused to talk to men because of what happened and felt comfortable talking only to women. She also did not want to be photographed in front of a camera.
Mia and her classmates were watching Lilo & Stitch when her teachers Eva Mireles and Irma Garcia received an email informing them of a school shooter. CNN spoke to both Maya and her mother.
“A teacher went to the door and he was right there – they made eye contact,” Neuss told CNN’s John Berman. “Mia says it all happened so fast. He supported the teacher in the classroom. He made eye contact with the teacher again, looked her straight in the eye and said goodnight, then shot her and killed her.”
At that moment, he opened fire in the classroom, which struck Mia’s other teacher and many friends.
Mia was also hit by fragments of bullets. They can be seen on the back, shoulders and nape, Neus said.
The shooter then walked into the next classroom and Maya told CNN she could hear screams, many more shots, and then she said she heard music.
“She thinks the shooter put it on. He started playing sad music, “Neuss said. “She just said it sounded like music. ‘I want people to die.’
Maya said she feared the shooter would return to kill her and several other surviving friends. So she put her hands in the blood of her friend, who was lying next to her — and he already looked dead — and then smeared her on himself to make her look dead.
She and a friend also managed to grab the phone of their dead teacher and call 911 for help. She says she told the dispatcher: “Please send help because we are in trouble.
Mia says she thought she was there for three hours, but her mother then said, “Honey, I think it was closer to an hour, but I’m sure she felt that way.”
As she lay there, Mia thought the police simply hadn’t reached campus, she told CNN.
She says she has since heard conversations about police officers waiting in front of the school. Saying this during the interview, she began to cry, saying she just didn’t understand why they didn’t come in and take them.
Mia is now going through the trauma and her parents launched GoFundMe specifically to pay for her therapy.
WATCH: 11-year-old says she used her boyfriend’s blood to play dead in the classroom
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