'Go tell her to be strong'
The doctors were warning this might be goodbye. But Maria Ruiz Santana amazed them all
By Jamie Sotonoff | Daily Herald StaffThe hospital staff quickly led Rebeca Santana-Ruiz and Alfredo Ruiz to their 20-year-old daughter, Maria.
She had just arrived by helicopter from DeKalb, and when they saw her, she was lying on a stretcher, semiconscious and covered in blood.
Maria had been shot, but because there was so much blood on her, it wasn't clear how many times or where.
"Your daughter is stable now, but she's still in very critical condition," the doctors at Good Samaritan Hospital in Downers Grove told the Elgin couple as nurses moved busily around them. "We don't know what's going to happen, so go talk to her now and tell her to be strong."
Without saying it directly, they were telling them to say goodbye to their daughter, just in case.
As the doctors waited, Maria's parents took turns bending down and speaking into her ear.
Her mom gave her a tearful hug and told her to be strong.
Her father, always the joker, said, "Now you think you're Superman, huh? You think you can stop a bullet?"
Then he turned serious, telling his daughter he loved her.
"I said, 'Tell me how you're doing.' And she gave me a look like, 'Piece of cake!' And that made me feel a little better," Ruiz said.
As soon as they finished, nurses rolled Maria away, toward the surgery room. Her parents retreated to the waiting area, where for five heart-wrenching and slow-passing hours, they sat. Occasionally they paced. Wept and prayed. Gave long hugs to their other children, sons Julio and Jose.
They also contemplated how this could have happened - how someone could shoot an innocent girl who was doing nothing more than sitting in her Introduction to Ocean Science class at Northern Illinois University on Valentine's Day.
Their emotions swung from fear to hope, from anger to peace.
"I asked God, 'If she's not going to be OK, then just take her away from us.' But then I said, 'No, don't do that! Don't take her! You can't take her!'" Rebeca Santana-Ruiz said.
Meanwhile, a crowd of more than 100 family members and friends gathered downstairs in the lobby of the Downers Grove hospital, holding a vigil for the popular Larkin High School graduate.
In the middle of the night, the doctors walked into the waiting room to tell her parents how the surgery went.
She was going to make it.
"She is amazing," the doctors told them - a phrase that would be repeated in the next nine months by everyone who knows her.
Feb. 14, 2008
Maria Ruiz Santana grew up in Jalisco, Mexico, with her parents and two brothers, one older and one younger. When she was 12, her mother, Rebeca, a teacher, was recruited by Elgin Area School District U-46 to teach bilingual classes. So the tight-knit family of five left their native country and moved to Elgin.
Maria enrolled in Larkin High School, and the petite brunette did well in classes and made many friends.
In her high school criminology class, she wrote a research paper about serial killer Ted Bundy and remembers being fascinated by his psychotic motivation to kill dozens of young women in the 1970s.
"As I read more details about him, it just made me more curious," she said.
Her passion toward the subject led her to study criminology when she entered NIU in fall 2006. One day, she hoped to land a job with the FBI.
But first, she had to get through ocean science. On Feb. 14, 2008, Maria walked into the class in Cole Hall with her roommate Sandra. They found seats in the fifth row and plopped their stuff down around them. Maria scanned the room and saw her friend Ryanne Mace sitting on the other side of the lecture hall. She planned to go over and say hi, but the class started before she had a chance.
"I didn't want to go to class that day. I was so tired," she said.
Besides, that night, Maria had big Valentine's Day plans with her boyfriend and their friends. She already was dressed in her favorite jeans and jewelry.
"Class was over at 3:15 (p.m.) and it was 3:05," Maria said. "I looked at the clock and told Sandra, 'Oh! In 10 minutes we can leave!' And as soon as I turned and looked again, there he was."
Maria believes she was struck by the gunman's first shot. Hit in the center of her neck, she slumped to the floor between the rows of seats. She heard her classmates screaming.
"I kept opening and closing my eyes, and looking up at the light, thinking, 'What should I do?'" she said. "I remember Sandra next to me crying and saying my name. - I was looking right at her, so she knew I was alive. But I couldn't talk. She was dialing her phone, and then she was gone."
Maria lay on the lecture hall floor, gurgling blood and gasping for air with each inhalation. Once in a while, a gunshot blast sounded in the silent room. She saw the gunman's feet walk past her row.
Maria began to drift in and out of consciousness. She thought about letting go. That's when NIU Police Chief Donald Grady found her on the lecture hall floor.
He crouched down next to her and held her hand.
Grady, a 6-foot-5 military man, is a highly respected, 30-year police veteran. He's worked as a consultant to police forces around the world, including war-torn regions like Iraq and Bosnia. At NIU, not only is he the police chief but he teaches a tough sociology class called "Police in a Democratic Society."
When he entered Cole Hall and found Maria, he picked her up and laid her in the aisle. Using his paramedic training, he continuously asked her questions to stop her from going into shock. What are you majoring in? Where did you go to high school?
Maria remembers thinking, "Who is this guy and why is he asking me so many weird questions?" But she tried to answer, even though she could barely talk or breath.
Grady also tended to two other injured students whom he declined to identify. One died. The other was not critically wounded, so he spent most of his time with Maria, waiting at her side until the paramedics arrived.
"If Chief Grady wasn't there, I don't know if I'd still be here," Maria said. "He's my hero."
An ambulance and helicopter ride later, doctors were rebuilding Maria's esophagus under the bright white lights of Good Samaritan's surgery room. They also removed more than 20 shotgun pellets from her face, chest, arms and spinal cord.
Afterward, Maria remained heavily sedated. Not wanting to raise her blood pressure, her parents shielded her from the news that five of her classmates had died, including her friend Ryanne. When Maria eventually found out what had happened a few days later - accidentally, while on Facebook - she bawled uncontrollably for hours. She was unable to speak because she had tubes in her throat.
When her health improved and the reality of what happened sank in, Maria made a conscious decision to look forward and not back. But then an NIU social worker visited her in the hospital. The spring 2008 semester might be a total loss, the social worker gently said. Unable to speak, Maria began to cry. She grabbed for a pad of paper and wrote in all capital letters, "I WANT TO GO BACK."
It took two difficult months of rehabilitation at her parents' home, speech therapy at the Bastian Voice Institute in Downers Grove, and several sessions with an NIU-provided psychologist. But in mid-April, Maria - fiercely determined and once again able to talk - returned to DeKalb and finished the semester.
While she still carries some physical and mental scars, Maria's positive attitude has allowed her to transcend that nightmarish experience and live her life with a clear focus.
"I don't look at what happened," she said, "I just look at what's going to happen next."
