CORAL SPRINGS, FLA. (WSVN) - Some South Florida families are still waiting to hear if loved ones they haven’t seen or heard from since the mass shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School made it out alive.
One of these family members is Vicky Al Hadeff, the grandmother of one of the students who remains unaccounted for.
She said she is fearing the worst. “They said there were 16 bodies in the school, and they haven’t identified them yet, and we can’t find my granddaughter, and that’s all we know,” she said.
Al Hadeff stood outside a Marriott hotel in Coral Springs hoping to find her granddaughter, 15-year-old Alyssa Al Hadeff, a freshman at the Parkland school.
The distraught grandmother said she’s been to several hospitals searching for the teen.
“We’re waiting here to find out. They’re trying to identify the bodies, and we’re waiting here to see if we can get any word, any news, anything,” said Al Hadeff. “We don’t know anything.”
Al Hadeff described her granddaughter as a sweet-natured girl who is into sports. “She’s the sweetest. She’s a big soccer [player], very smart,” she said. ‘She’s in track. She’s very popular, very beautiful girl.”
Rabbi Shuey Biston, a chaplain at the synagogue where Alyssa was bat mitzvahed, also came to the Marriott.
“Right now, they’ve assembled, basically, all of the families that still haven’t been able to account for their children in the various hospitals,” said Biston. “They’ve told them all to come back to the Marriott. It’s the meeting point.”
As for the loved ones still waiting to hear back whether their children survived, Biston replied, “They’re literally in a state of shock.”
“Oh, my God. She’s my life,” said Al Hadeff as she broke down in tears. “How could I not love her?”
When asked what she would tell this grandmother, Biston said, “There really are no words.”
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