A survivor of the mass shooting at Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, Texas last month has been hospitalized after visiting her best friend’s memorial last week and nearly suffered a heart attack.
Illiana Treviño, 11, was close friends with Amerie Jo Garza, who was among the 19 children and two teachers killed in the massacre.
Jessica Treviño, 40, told PEOPLE that last Tuesday she took her daughter to leave a teddy bear and flowers at the memorial for Amerie who had always protected and helped Illiana.
After the visit Illiana told her parents she was not feeling well and they rushed her to the hospital where they were told by doctors that their daughter was “going into cardiac arrest” after her heart rate spiked because of the trauma.
She was admitted to the intensive care unit but has since been moved out.
“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,” the family said in a GoFundMe. “The doctors biggest worry is that she might go into cardiac arrest.”
| CREDIT: COURTESY JESSICA TREVINO
Treviño told PEOPLE that her daughter had no underlying medical condition that could’ve caused her heart issues.
“I think it’s just from a broken heart that we need to work on healing,” she said, adding “everything just broke her in half, and she feels the fear of being bullied again.”
Illiana was not hurt during the shooting. The gunman walked past her classroom. She found out Amerie was killed later that night while watching the news. “She just started screaming and crying,” Treviño told PEOPLE.
Amerie, 10, was shot while she was trying to call 911 on her cellphone, her grandmother, Berlinda Arreola said.
“That was just the way she was. She tried to save everyone,” Arreola said of her granddaughter.
According to Treviño, Amerie would defend Illiana from bullies at school.
“Amerie made her feel safe and made her feel okay to go to school,” she said.
Illiana’s family revealed on Saturday that she has been discharged from the hospital, nearly two weeks later, and is at home and on her way to recovery.
