Woman surprised with cash for helping 10-year-old gunshot victim
San Antonio — Emergency responders are typically first on the scene to help. But when gunfire rang out two weeks ago at the Canlen West Apartments on the North Side, a stranger immediately ran towards a girl’s screams.
"I was terrified," the 10-year-old victim's mother said.
Tiffany Moore lived 3 doors away from the Kharisma when she heard the sounds of a gun.
"It was all happening right here,” the victim’s mother explained. “My daughter. She was laid out.”
The San Antonio Police Department said two kids found a stashed gun in the laundry room area at the complex. Kharisma was one of them.
"I had picked it up and put it into the grass and my best friend, he had picked it up because he thought it was a toy gun,” the fourth grader explained. “So he picked it up and then pulled the trigger."
Kharisma was accidentally shot with the loaded gun. Her mother said the bullet miraculously went through her shoulder and missed every major organ. And while the scene was chaotic immediately after the gunfire, Moore was able to help bring a sense of calm by turning to her experience as a nurse.
"She just came,” the girl’s mother said. “She ran. She said, ‘I'm an RN. I'm an RN. I want to help. I want to help.' And that's what she did. She didn't hesitate."
Moore applied pressure to Kharisma’s wound.
“She took control,” she said about Moore, who’s a Hurricane Katrina evacuee and mother of two.
Shereka Ratliff nominated her best friend Moore on CASH FOR KINDNESS. She called it an amazing opportunity to show the mother of a child with cancer that she's a true hero.
"She ran out of her house and ran towards the little girl and saved a little girl's life,” she explained to Fox San Antonio’s Ryan Wolf. “She waited until the paramedics came.”
Ratliff helped Wolf with the surprise. She told her friend that she was at her apartment to give her a small freezer she no longer needed. It was all part of our CASH FOR KINDNESS surprise.
"I'm Ryan Wolf from Fox San Antonio,” Wolf told Moore when she arrived near the parking lot. “Do you know what I'm doing here? I'm here, because you're a hero."
Ratliff smiled and told her there was no freezer.
“I called Ryan Wolf to let him know that you are the best friend in the whole world,” she said with tears in her eyes. “I love you so much. You took your own shirt off to do that. I want to say I love you. Come here. Come here.”
The two embraced with a hug.
Wolf grabbed a stack of $100 bills from his pocket and asked Moore, “Have you ever seen my program CASH FOR KINDNESS?”
“I watch you guys all the time!” Moore said with a nervous laughter.
She counted the money Wolf handed to her.
"$100, $200, $300, $400, $500,” Moore said with a huge smile. “This is for my insurance!”
Moore reached out and gave Wolf a hug.
“How do you feel?" he asked.
“Shocked!" she laughed. Bewildered I need a cigarette!"
When the shock wore off, Moore marched directly to her neighbor’s apartment to share some of her cash award with Kharisma.
"I'm gonna give $100,” she said.
The girl put her hand over mouth in shock.
“Oh, wow!” she said. “Wow!”
“Because I've been shot, and I know the fear,” Moore said about her generosity. “So that $100, go out to eat. Y'all go have fun."
Kharisma showed tears of joy instead of pain. Her family said Moore is a woman who knows what it truly means to be kind.
Click here to nominate someone you know for the CASH FOR KINDNESS award