The Texas cheerleader shot after a friend mistakenly got into the wrong car in a grocery store parking lot in Elgin is recovering from surgery.
Payton Washington was shot in the leg and back and required surgery to remove her ruptured spleen, her father, Kelan Washington, told NBC News. The 18-year-old is in the ICU and stable, and although heavily sedated, she has been able to talk to visitors when she is awake.
He described his daughter, who was born with only one lung, as a star athlete who is “tough as they come.”
Washington was on her way home from practice early Tuesday when she and three friends stopped at an H-E-B, where some had parked their cars. Elgin is just northeast of Austin in Central Texas.
Her friend Heather Roth said she mistakenly opened the driver’s side door of the wrong car, found a stranger in the passenger seat and returned to the correct car, according to multiple news reports. A man approached, and as she began to apologize, he started shooting.
Washington was taken to a hospital in critical condition and Roth, who was grazed by a bullet, was treated at the scene, police said.
Pedro Tello Rodriguez Jr., 25, was arrested on a charge of deadly conduct, a third-degree felony.
The shooting has stunned the Woodlands Elite Cheer Co. days before they are set to compete in the Allstar World Championship in Orlando this weekend. Lynne Shearer, who owns the company, told CNN the Houston-based team is preparing to compete without Washington.
“The realization of the fact that she’s not going to be competing this weekend — it was starting to set in,” Shearer said.
Washington started gymnastics at just 18 months old, her father told NBC. Looking for another challenge, she later moved into cheerleading. A senior in Round Rock ISD, Washington is committed to the acrobatic and tumbling team at Baylor University.
“She gravitated towards watching cheer and tumbling and just felt like she had to do it,” Kelan Washington said. “She had to get over there and learn how to execute that stuff.”
A GoFundMe account to help with Washington’s medical expenses had surpassed $117,000 by Thursday morning.
Felecia Mulkey, Baylor’s head tumbling coach, told CNN that she has visited Washington and that the teenager is making progress, although her recovery is only beginning.
“Payton is a strong young lady; if you know her, you know that about her,” Mulkey said. “I have no doubt she’s going to get through this.”
The shooting was the third in recent days in which young people were wounded or killed while accidentally going to the wrong places.
Ralph Yarl, 16, was shot after ringing the wrong doorbell in Kansas City, Mo., trying to pick up his younger brothers, and 20-year-old Kaylin Gillis was killed after pulling into the wrong driveway looking for a friend’s house in rural upstate New York.
The shootings have sparked a fresh wave of outrage in the U.S., where firearms are the leading cause of death among children.
