Uvalde survivor, 11, nearly suffers cardiac arrest at friend’s memorial

Illiana Trevino had gone to memorial to leave teddy bear and flowers for best friend Amerie

A preteen survivor of the Uvalde mass shooting in Texas has been hospitalised after she was on the brink of a cardiac arrest while attending her best friend’s memorial last week.

The parents of 11-year-old Illiana Trevino were told by doctors that their daughter was “going into cardiac arrest” after her heart rate spiked.

“Illiana is in Children’s Methodist Hospital in San Antonio at the moment. Her heart can’t take the stress and trauma of this past week. The medication that she’s been given is not working,” a GoFundMe page started by her family read.

It added that the doctors’s “biggest worry is that she might go into cardiac arrest”.

The GoFundMe page dedicated to Illiana has raised $24,390 of its stated $20,000 goal.

Her family has described her as one of the many children who made it out alive following the mass shooting in an elementary school in Texas on 24 May.

Days later, at the memorial of her best friend Amerie, who was killed in the mass shooting, she told her mother Jessica Trevino that she was not feeling well, according to People. She said she had never felt that way before.

The fourth grader had gone to the memorial to leave a teddy bear and flowers for her friend, who had always protected and helped Illiana.

“We are barely seeing the ripples [of] side effects of what this tragic incident has brought to our community. I know a lot of us know this family,” the page read.

It added that the girl’s parents will have to stay in San Antonio for the moment as Illiana will be kept in the hospital until further notice.

At least 19 children and two teachers were killed inside the Robb Elementary School on 24 May after a gunman entered the premises and opened fire.

Records obtained by The New York Times show that the police officials, who were outside while the mass shooting was underway, were waiting for protective equipment even as they knew that some of the victims inside the school needed medical treatment.

A total of 60 officers had gathered on the scene by the time four officers made entry, according to the report. The two classrooms where the gunman went rogue and fired included 33 children and three teachers.