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MSU shooting survivor shares her story for the first time in a social media post

Guadalupe Huapilla-Perez is a brown skinned person. She's has black hair and dark colored eyes. In the photo she's wearing a black suit jacket with her dark curly hair down. She's smiling in the photo.
Selena Huapilla-Perez
/
GoFundMe
Guadalupe Huapilla-Perez is one of the five Michigan State University students who were injured in a mass shooting on campus on February 13.

Lupe Huapilla-Perez was attending her evening class on February 13th at Berkey Hall on MSU’s campus when a gunman entered the room and opened fire.

In a public Facebook post shared last Thursday, she said she didn’t remember getting shot but does remember seeing a classmate holding their shirt to her body to try to stop the bleeding.

Her family has stated previously that Huapilla-Perez sustained two bullet wounds and underwent surgery to remove her spleen. Her colon, diaphragm, stomach and lungs were also impacted.

“I can't remember the pain of my wounds but I can remember the pain I felt in my heart seeing this horrible tragedy unfold before me. I remember the rush to the hospital, feeling a deep sense of loneliness and fear,” Huapilla-Perez wrote.

She said that night she came face to face with one of her biggest fears: experiencing a mass shooting.

“I not only experienced it that night, but am a living reminder of it every day since,” she stated.

In the post, Huapilla-Perez shared her gratitude for her family, her care providers, the other survivors and her network of campus supporters. She also expressed grief for Arielle Anderson, Alexandria Verner and Brian Fraser. They were the three students who died in the shooting.

“I didn't know them closely but it is a painful feeling to live with knowing I shared their last moments with them,” she wrote.

Huapilla-Perez was released from the Sparrow Hospital in Lansing exactly one month after the shooting. She’s now continuing her recovery in East Lansing.

“It is a vulnerable thing to admit, but recovery has been very hard. There are layers of my recovery I have to face every day. Mentally, Emotionally, and Physically. But my recovery has felt safer having my family by my side,” Huapilla-Perez wrote on Facebook.

Her family lives in Florida but made the journey to Lansing following the shooting.

Huapilla-Perez said she’s committed to standing in solidarity in the ongoing conversation around gun violence in schools.

She also has also asked for continued privacy as she heals.

Huapilla-Perez did not have health insurance at the time of the shooting. Her family has raised nearly half a million dollars through a GoFundMe to support her medical and recovery costs.

MSU officials have previously stated the university would cover the medical bills for the victims of the shooting.

As WKAR's Bilingual Latinx Stories Reporter, Michelle reports in both English and Spanish on stories affecting Michigan's Latinx community.
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