Throughout her life, Isabelle Ruiz, 17, a senior at Del City High School, has fought adversity head-on and stayed calm under pressure. She remains positive despite many life-changing experiences.
When Ruiz was 7, Aaron Brooks, her 1-year-old half-brother, was hit on the back of the head as he crawled under a car that started moving.
“Luckily, he was still young so he bounced back and made a full recovery,” Ruiz said. “Now, he’s one of the smartest kids I know.”
That year, Ruiz also dealt with the death of a relative for the first time. One night, her uncle George’s vehicle struck an 18-wheel truck head-on at high speed. Ruiz said her family learned of the accident when they saw a picture of him on television.
“I couldn’t believe he was dead until the day of the funeral service,” she said.
On Jan. 31, 2014, a day before her brother Brandon’s 14th birthday, her aunt Rosy Reynoso, 26, was found dead in her home, shot in the back of the head. Two of Reynoso’s three sons, Luis and Angel, found her body, Ruiz said.
During Labor Day weekend in late August 2014, her uncle, Eduardo Luna, was at Lake Murray near Ardmore with his girlfriend, Rosie, a nonswimmer, and their son Andrew, 5. They walked to a sandbar and encountered deep water, where Rosie struggled to stay afloat. Eduardo pushed her and the boy toward shallow water, but he drowned.
Isabelle said she did not learn about the incident until her mother sent her a text message saying, “They found him.” It was intended for someone else.
“When I asked what the text meant, she told me that Eduardo’s body was found in the lake,” Ruiz said.
Isabelle said she always tries to see the brighter side of everything but adds, “People always change . . . I don’t want to believe that people are evil,” she said.
Ruiz, who would be first in her immediate family to attend college, said she hopes to study aerospace engineering at Massachusetts Institute of Technology, the University of Chicago or the University of Oklahoma.
