Parkland survivor shares her story of strength

It’s been four years since the massacre at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School that changed the lives of parents, friends, educators and students forever. Now, a parkland survivor shares her message for us all these years later.

No number of flowers. No number of funerals. No amount of time will ever erase what Marjory Stoneman Douglas students saw four years ago.

“While I was running, I kept seeing ambulances like dragging bodies inside. I kept seeing kids shot. You know, I saw this girl with a huge black eye because she was shot in the eye. I saw people bleeding,” said Isabella Benjumea.

Benjumea said she’s thankful she survived the Parkland massacre but admits her innocence is gone.

Her otherwise lovely childhood was cut short.

Benjumea said, “that marked me before and after, like the 14-year-old girl that I was stayed in that classroom and never left.”

The woman she’s grown into is tough. Tough enough to spend the 4-year mark of that deadly day talking about her experience.

Her reason why, “I want anyone who has lived through something difficult to know that it does get better, that you will, you will get stronger, you will heal.”

She should know. Among the 17 killed was her dear friend Alyssa Alhadeff.

A loss like that lives with you forever, but Benjumea wants you to know that she lives on for, and with, her friend.

“I know she’s smiling up there in heaven, and she’s watching over everybody who loved her. I would want her to still be here. But I know she’s still with me by heart.”

Isabella is now a freshman at UCF. You might’ve noticed those books behind her. She zoomed WINK News Reporter Sydney Persing after class. Yes, she went to class on the four-year mark of that horrific day.

She is studying journalism. She said she wants to help other people share their stories the way she continues to share her own.