Mom ran into Robb Elementary during shooting to save kids. She's battling survivor’s guilt.

UVALDE – Two years have passed since Angeli Rose Gomez made the heroic decision to rush into Robb Elementary School after hearing gunshots and not knowing if her two boys were in the gunman’s sights.

Despite being shackled with a handcuff on one wrist, Gomez wrestled herself away from a Texas Department of Public Safety trooper and ran into the school.

Gomez’s two young sons happened to be among the children who escaped injury that day.

Many were not that fortunate. The gunman killed 19 fourth graders and two teachers on May 24, 2022, when a former student who had been expelled years earlier open fire and killed his victims in Classroom 111 and Classroom 112.

“Should I have not saved my kids?" Gomez said.

“My kids should be in those boxes too. Thank God they're not,” she said, referring to coffins.

Gomez works picking onions and had just returned to the field after attending her children's graduation ceremonies. It was merely minutes later that she discovered that a gunman had entered Robb Elementary School.

Gomez said she drove as fast as she could back to the school, and, when she arrived, she could hear gunshots ring out as the assailant plowed his way through two classrooms.

Law enforcement officials on the scene held parents back, ignoring their pleas to let them into the school. More than 300 officers stood inside and outside of the school – many of the law enforcement officers in a hallway – as gunshots rang out.

Gomez cried as she recalled the interaction she had with a DPS trooper who tried to arrest her.

After she told the official that she needed to get inside and get her children, she said, “If you're not going to do it, I'm going to go ahead and do it.”

Images and video footage of Gomez rescuing her two young children from the school gained widespread attention.

“In that video where I'm running out, that's not my son, the one on the right side” Gomez said. “He was actually my brother-in-law.”

Gomez retrieved one of her children when she entered the school. She rushed back inside to locate her other son when her brother-in-law approached her.

It’s tough facing victims’ families every day because they lost their children, and she didn’t, Gomez said.

Though her children were physically unharmed that day, Gomez said her children still struggle emotionally when they're reminded of the tragic events that occurred at their elementary school.

“It still affects them in ways,” Gomez said when talking about her two children. “We all take counseling.”

Gomez was depicted as a hero after the world saw what she did for her children. People offered to create GoFundMe accounts and offer her money for her and her children. She said she declined these offers because she already has everything she wants and needs.

“I already got what I wanted. My kids are alive.” Gomez said as she talks about being offered money for her actions.

“I’m not a hero” Gomez said. “I’m just a mom.”

This article originally appeared on Austin American-Statesman: Mom who ran into school during Uvalde shooting to save kids has guilt