San Antonio — Road-rage shooting survivor, 11, receives Cash for Kindness surprise
An 11-year-old San Antonio girl who survived a road-rage shooting is speaking publicly for the first time since the terrifying attack.
Fox SA met Alisa Gates at a West Side park, where she greeted anchor Ryan Wolf with a smile that reflects months of recovery.
“Good to see you. Hello. You survived. This is fantastic, and you look incredible. This is great,” Wolf told her.
Her family says this is the first time Alisa has spoken publicly since the shooting.
For her father, Jason, the emotions remain raw.
“It was God. God was there with her every second, every minute.”
He calls her recovery nothing short of a miracle.
Hospital video shows the moment Alisa walked again for the first time after taking a bullet to the stomach. Photos reveal where surgeons removed the bullet nearly two months ago.
Jason believes a small twist of fate may have saved his daughter’s life.
“When the bullet hit the side door, it slowed the bullet down, and it went down instead of going straight,” he said.
When asked what might have happened if the bullet had traveled differently, he answered quietly.
“Yeah she could be six feet in the ground.”
Today, Alisa has returned to school and has been cleared from therapy.
But her father says the trauma lingers. Nightmares still happen, and even riding in a car can sometimes trigger anxiety.
Despite that, Alisa says surviving the shooting has changed her perspective.
“I felt like I was blessed. I felt like God, like when I got shot, he had a shield around me.”
When asked why she feels stronger now, she had a simple explanation.
“Well, because people who recover from like any type of injury, when they recover fully, mostly they’re stronger than they were before.”
San Antonio police say the shooting happened after Alisa’s mother honked at a driver who was aggressively backing out of a driveway. Alisa was sitting in the back seat when a driver, identified by SAPD as 41-year-old Bryan Arceo, allegedly shot at her family’s vehicle after a honking incident near Bandera Road and Timberhill Drive.
Jason says the incident permanently changed the way the family lives.
“If she goes outside, I go outside. She goes out to the end of the driveway, and Mama will look at her and say, ‘Hey, come back up here.’”
But the family says the support they’ve received from the community has helped them heal.
Letters, gifts and donations have poured in since the shooting.
“I know it’s too much love in this world. You just find the wrong people at the wrong time. That’s it.”
That outpouring of support inspired Fox SA’s Cash for Kindness program to step in with a surprise.
“Ever since the incident that you went through and the bravery that you showed, there have been people all over the community who wanted to reach out and help you,” Wolf told her.
“They reached out to me saying, ‘What can we do to make sure Alisa knows she’s loved?’”
Wolf then shared the real reason why he’s there.
“This represents the $1,000 Cash for Kindness prize on behalf of our new sponsor, Manuel & Sons A/C and Heating and Fox SA.”
Her father responded with tears in his eyes.
“Appreciate it a whole lot.”
For the family, the message behind the prize means just as much as the money.
They are not alone.