Cheryl Sledge Richards and her daughter, Trinity, spent Saturday April 15th doing the regular things that moms and daughters do.

They were out running errands, shopping and talking about all sorts of things.

Included in their conversation were the tragic deaths of Madison Sims and Samuel Brown, killed in a horrific crash earlier that morning after attending the Paul W. Bryant High School prom together.

“That bothered me so bad,’’ Richards said. “Prom is one of those milestones you look forward to and then they didn’t make it back home.”

“I told Trinity that day in Target that every day, somebody doesn’t make it home to their mama and somebody’s mama doesn’t make it home to them,’’ she said. “And little did I know that that was our day. I told her about that, not thinking for a second about how our day was going to end.”

“We’d had a great day,’’ Richards said. “It was the kind of day that make you say, ‘This is why I had children.’ Life was just good. We were really happy.”

But hours later, that perfect day turned into a nightmare for Richards, for Trinity and for dozens of others.

Trinity, a 16-year-old cheerleader at Pike Road High Schools, is one of 24 people who survived being shot at the Sweet 16 birthday party in Dadeville nearly three weeks ago.

Four still hospitalized

The party was in honor of Alexis Dowdell, whose 18-year-old brother, Phil, was killed.

Others killed in the shooting were Shaunkivia Nicole “Keke” Smith, 17, Marsiah Emmanuel “Siah” Collins, 19, and Corbin Dahmontrey Holston, 23.

In addition to the four killed, 24 others suffered gunshot wounds, Tallapoosa County District Attorney Mike Segrest told AL.com.

Of the 24 shooting survivors, 21 suffered penetrating wounds and three graze wounds.

Here is full coverage of the case

The majority of the gunshot victims, Segrest said, suffered multiple wounds each.

The four victims hurt that night, but not shot, suffered injuries such as a broken hand and a broken elbow.

Of the 28 victims, the oldest was 37-year-old LaTonya Allen, the mother of Alexis and Phil Dowdell.

The other victims were one 19-year-old, six 18-year-olds, three 17-year-olds, ten 16-year-olds, five 15-year-olds and two 14-year-olds.

Trinity, who was shot four times, including in the head, remains at UAB Hospital in the NICU.

Trinity’s close friend and fellow cheerleader, Cara Johns, also 16, remains hospitalized in Columbus. Cara also was shot in the the head and had wounds to her chest and stomach.

Earlier this week, Cara opened her eyes for the first time since the shooting.

A GoFundMe for Trinity can be found here and one for Cara can be found here.

Others injured include 16-year-old Bre Hutchinson, who was released from the hospital April 24 after being shot in the hip, Makai Simpson, a 15-year-old Opelika High School student athlete who dreams of playing in the NFL, and Kendarrius Heard, an 18-year- old senior at Dadeville High School football player who was left paralyzed from the shooting.

Segrest said four victims remain in the hospital, and many others have required outpatient surgery from their injuries.

‘They didn’t expect her to make it’

Authorities said 89 shell casings were recovered from the dance hall. Those shell casings came from seven different weapons.

Those charged with reckless murder and being held in the Tallapoosa County Jail are: 20-year-old Johnny Letron Brown of Tuskegee; 19-year-old Willie George Brown Jr. of Auburn; 20-year-old Wilson LaMar Hill Jr. of Auburn, and brothers Ty Reik McCullough, 17, and Travis McCullough, 16, of Tuskeegee.

A 15-year-old, who has not been publicly identified, is also charged.

Trinity, one of the most critically injured survivors, has defied the odds in every step of her recovery.

She has gone from agonal breathing (more commonly known as the “death rattle”) that night of the shooting to singing lyrics to one of her mother’s favorite gospel songs.

“Just when man thinks all hope is lost,” Richards said, “God steps in and reminds you that this is His fight. “Trinity is making amazing progress.”

Richards and her husband were preparing to go to bed that Saturday night when their phone rang. Trinity, close friends with Alexis Dowdell, was planning to spend the night with Alexis after the birthday party.

A friend of Trinity’s called Richards to tell her Trinity had been shot. She knew it had to be a mistake, but quickly got up, dressed and on the road.

Alexis then called her, she said, and told her that Trinity was at Lake Martin Hospital. But somehow, Richards ended up at the Dadevile hospital.

“I saw Alexis and she said, ‘I checked Trinity, her neck, her head, her shoulder, her arms, her chest, her stomach – she’s not shot up there’,’’ Richards said.

“By then we knew her brother and mother were shot so we were able to comfort her and then left,’’ she said. “When I got to Lake Martin, I was shocked when they told me she’d been shot in the head.”

One of the bullets entered Trinity’s head by her right ear toward the front of her head.

“I was not prepared for that at all,’’ Richards said.

“I thought she’d be crying and saying, “Mom I should have stayed with you all.’ We were having a birthday party for Trinity’s nephew, and I had teased her about not taking her aunt responsibilities seriously.”

Two of the paramedics, a husband-and-wife team, contacted Richards through friends and told her that they “had triaged Trinity … and considered her gone.”

“She was in agonal breathing, which is what we typically refer to as the death rattle, and they didn’t expect her to make it,’’ Richards said. “There was the possibility that she was brain dead.”

“They never used that word, but they didn’t know what the outcome would be because they have a lot of people with the exact same injury and everybody’s outcome was different,’’ she said.

“Because she was young and healthy, that would be an advantage to her.”

1/33

“We immediately started praying for a miracle because it was clear from Lake Martin Hospital that nothing short of a miracle would bring her back and just keep her live, let alone getting her to talking and having any kind of hope for a normal life,’’ Richards said.

News that her daughter had been shot in the head was devastating.

“You know when somebody gets shot in the head that is largely fatal,’’ Richards said. “I was like my baby is gone.”

When Richards got to see Trinity for the first time, she said you could not tell she’d sustained a head wound, likely because of her hairstyle.

“They got ready to try to transition the seriously injured to different hospitals,’’ she said. “I wanted her to come to UAB.”

Trinity was going to be airlifted to UAB, but visibility was low, and the helicopter could not fly. Instead, she was transported by ground.

“We got here about 2 a.m. and the prognosis was not good,’’ Richards said. “But they said clearly from Day 1 they did not know. And when you don’t know, for me, that gives God room to do what only God can do and that is provide miracles.”

“God alone could save Trinity and we knew that,’’ she said. “I was probably in shock for a week easily- just running on fumes, not sleeping, not eating, just praying.”

‘There is always hope’

Trinity’s recovery has been a series of ups and downs. Richards has spent every single night with her in the NICU.

Doctors had to remove about one-third of Trinity’s skull because of brain swelling.

She still has a drain, but they are hoping to remove that soon. Already, she has been taken off the ventilator and oxygen and is 100 percent breathing on her own.

A scary moment came when another CT scan was done on Trinity, and the prognosis seemed even worse.

“We continued to pray for a miracle because whatever they said, it just didn’t matter at this point because we had already seen the power of God and the power of prayer,’’ Richards said.

“I prayed with Trinity and went to sleep feeling not more defeated but challenged.”

But the next day, Trinity opened her eyes and did all the things she’d done before and even added more. She was shaking her yes and no in response to questions.

“One day I got really overwhelmed. I was praying that God give me back Trinity in any condition and I would take care of her,’’ Richards said.

“And I started thinking about that and I said, ‘Is that fair to Trinity? What if she couldn’t walk, what if she couldn’t talk, what if she was a vegetable because at some point that was on the table too.”

But with each low has come a new high. Trinity, her mother said, has amazed her doctors.

“They would come in and see Trinity doing these things,’’ she said. “They would be smiling and so proud and so surprised at her progress and then you knew they were really buying in.”

“They were doing everything they could but there are limitations in science. But God does not have limitations,’’ she said.

“What has happened is very miraculous, but I think it has shown a lot of people that there is always hope.”

And then as if all that wasn’t enough, Richards said, Trinity started talking.

This week, Richards was telling Trinity she was going to read her a children’s book series that she had read to her as a child. Neither Richards nor two of Trinity’s sisters could remember the name though.

“Trinity mouthed it when none of us could remember,’’ Richards said, “and then I knew for sure that she was very coherent.”

“The next day we heard Trinity’s voice. It was childlike and airy because she had the trach,’’ Richards said. “She started talking above the trach. And making sense. And making jokes. And remembering things. And connecting things.”

“After that she said, ‘Jesus,’ and then she sang a line from one of my favorite songs – ‘Lord, do it, o it for me right now,’ by Hezekiah Walker,’’ Richards said. “We cried, oh my God. We were so shocked and outdone.’’

Six months prior to the shooting, Richards had started playing gospel music exclusively and had started taking Trinity back to church.

“I knew God was going to do something, but I didn’t know what it was, she said “I had asked Him to do a mighty work but I didn’t know what that meant at that time, but I didn’t consider this. I’ve learned now to be very specific with my prayers. And I had started taking Trinity back to church.”

Trinity doesn’t yet recall the shooting or know why she is in the hospital.

“I hope she does not have any memory of the incident at all, but she just started calling out, ‘no, no, no, no,’ in her sleep,’’ Richards said. “I want her to be farther along in her recovery before she knows.”

Richards said she can’t make sense of the shooting.

“I didn’t think about it for a long time because I didn’t have anything to do with the anger that is associated with it,’’ she said.

“I can’t imagine what they were thinking to open fire in a room where it seems you could literally see everybody at the same time.”

“There were children dancing, singing, laughing. What are you thinking when you decide to shoot? I don’t understand that,’’ she said.

“We’ve waited to hear what the reason was but it doesn’t matter because whatever they end up saying, it’s not going to make any sense.”

On Thursday, Trinity sat up in a chair and ordered a Starbucks coffee. Her spirits are good, and her personality is intact.

Richards said they hope Trinity will be out of the ICU by the weekend. But she has a long road of recovery ahead of her, and likely will go to a rehabilitation facility for Traumatic Brain Injury.

“I won’t tell you I know what the outcome is going to be,’’ Richards said, “but I do know that God is going to give me the strength to navigate it or get through it.”

“We are already blessed beyond measure,’’ she said. “We’ve received miracles we didn’t deserve and we’re just praying every day that she continues to recover.”

“We need continuous prayer,’’ she said, “because that is clearly the answer and what has gotten us this far.”