Beyond The Destruction: 7-Year-Old Pulled From Rubble Recounts Experience 10 Years Later

For one student who survived the May 20th Moore tornado that hit Briarwood Elementary, her mother always does something special on May 20th. This year she came to meet our Lacey Swope.

Almost immediately after the EF5 Tornado hit Briarwood elementary in 2013, little 7-year-old Isabella Rojas meticulously told us what happened.

“And then we laid down under the desk and then whenever I saw all this rain coming on the window the tornado went in and I just was hanging on and I fell back and all the dirt started getting in my eyes and my clothes and that I really got stuck because all the desks were on top of us and the teacher got stuck,” Isabella said back in 2013.

Today she's 17, a junior at SouthMoore, and once again telling us about that day.

“She managed to say ‘everyone scream for help,’” said Isabella, talking about her teacher. “Calmly though, scream for help and everyone started screaming and we did hear footsteps and voices and we were ‘like there’s people, scream louder.’ And someone, I think it was firefighters, ended coming to us out of the rubble.”

Every year since the tornado, Isabella's mom has marked May 20th by taking her daughter to do something special. This year, she asked if she could visit News 9 and meet our meteorologists. 

Isabella's story is one few people will ever experience. It's impacted her emotionally.  

“For the longest time, she would have to have the light on to walk from the bedroom to the bathroom. That was like three feet,” said Isabella’s mother Charissa Rojas.

But Isabella's mom found her a therapist. And made sure she stayed with her classmates.

“I didn’t want Isabella to have any behavioral issues and for another school to be like ‘Oh, don’t worry she was in the tornado, and it will be fine,” Charissa said. “I wanted her to at Briarwood. Everybody at Briarwood went through a tornado.”

“I don’t think it would be the same if I moved somewhere else because no one would have known what it was like,” said Isabella.

Isabella still keeps in touch with the teacher that was pulled from the rubble and many of those same classmates will graduate together next year, bonded by a storm that ripped everything apart.