Nathaniel Tavarez, 12, who suffered severe wounds in a shooting Jan. 14 at Berenndo Middle School, Roswell, N.M., is making progress, his cousin, Iolan Kristie Tavarez, told the Register. IN A FOOTNOTE, showing how small the world can be, Olivia Lee, daughter of Sean and Brenda Lee and granddaughter of Iolans Bob and Beverly Johnson, is an eighth-grade student at Berenndo Middle School.
“He is breathing on his own, sat up in a chair Monday and had his right eye open,” although the quality of sight has yet to be determined, she said. His left eye remains bandaged.
Tuesday he went outdoors for a few minutes, smiled at the experience and even showed that the sight in his left eye is good enough to recognize some things.
“They called and told me last night he is doing really, really well for all he has gone through,” Tavarez said in a phone call this morning,
Tavarez, who spent several days in Lubbock, where her cousin is a patient at University Medical Center, said he remained “somewhat sedated and still is in intensive care.”
A piece of his skull temporarily was removed to “let his brain swell and do whatever it has to do to heal,” she added, and that doctors were encouraged by the results of a CAT scan.
The boy is the son of Alfred and Donna Tavarez, Kristie Tavarez’s aunt and uncle. Kristie Tavarez owns Iola’s All About U Salon.
He was shot when 12-year-old Mason Campbell allegedly brought a shotgun to the school in a band bag and shot into a crowd of students in the gymnasium before classes took up. Both are seventh graders.
Kendal Sanders, 13, suffered shoulder injuries. She was released from the Lubbock hospital Sunday and was scheduled to begin rehabilitation Tuesday. She had two surgeries to deal with her injuries.
According to a report by the Associated Press, the Sanders girl’s family said the suspected shooter “is not a bad boy” and that people need to stop trying to find someone to blame. Investigators have said they didn’t think Tavarez or Sanders were targeted.
Bert Sanders, the girl’s father, said the boy’s family are “good people.” He also said his daughter and the suspected shooter are friends. They went to Vacation Bible School together and Kendal shares her father’s forgiving nature, he said. “She is not angry at (the suspected shooter). She thinks he made bad choices,” Bert Sanders said.
She arrived at school a minute or two after the shooting, and immediately was ushered into a storeroom, along with several other students and teachers. They were sequestered for about an hour, before all students were bussed to a mall where their parents were waiting.
Brenda Lee said her daughter “was a little more quiet than usual” for a couple of days, and now seemed to be handling the incident reasonably well.
Boy wounded in shooting doing better
