The 11-year-old girl who was scalped in a freak accident at a Cinco de Mayo carnival earlier this month, looked in the mirror for the first time on Tuesday.
In a new photo taken by her mother, Elizabeth 'Lulu' Gilreath smiles after seeing her appearance for the first time since the traumatic accident. This is despite the
'Lulu is stronger than me,' her mother, Virginia Cooksey, wrote on Facebook on Tuesday. 'My baby girl saw herself for the first time today. The way she [handled] it [gave] me strength.'
Lulu was riding a carnival ride called the King's Crown on May 7, when she accidentally fell, causing her hair to become entangled - ripping hair and skin off her scalp.
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Elizabeth 'Lulu' Gilreath looked at herself in the mirror for the first time on Tuesday, two weeks after losing part of her scalp in a freak carnival ride accident
The 11-year-old girl pictured above before her accident. Her mother says her progress is amazing doctors but that she still has 'a long road ahead of her'
The little girl was hospitalized in critical condition, and doctors first said she may never be able to see again.
But Lulu is already defying expectations. She is now seeing out of her right eye, though her left eye is still swollen shut. Last week, she was taken off a breathing tube and she is now able to freely communicate with her family. The tubes on her head are to keep leeches in place which are keeping blood flowing.
'They are really amazed by the progress she has done,' her mother said at a recent press conference.
Still, her mom says she has a 'long road ahead of her' - including another surgery on Friday or Saturday to remove part of her scalp. She has also undergone 15 blood transfusions.
In a show of solidarity with her daughter, Cooksey has since cut her hair short. Cooksey's edgy crop also has the name 'Lulu' engraved into her short hairs.
Lulu and her mother Virginia Cooksey pictured above in the hospital. 'Lulu is stronger than me,' Cooksey wrote on Facebook this week
Lulu's parents (Left, father Timothy Gilreath. Right, mother Virginia Cooksey) pictured above at a press conference shortly after her hospitalization
The community has rallied around the little girl, raising more than 60,000 on GoFundMe for her hospital bills.
Meanwhile, the Nebraska Department of Labor has been looking into whether anything went wrong with the ride the day Lulu suffered her accident.
Last week, the department released a statement saying they found nothing to indicate that 'any portion of the ride' failed or malfunctioned, or that the operator wasn't paying attention.
But Cooksey says she's not satisfied with the current laws in Nebraska, which call for carnival rides to be checked for safety only once a year.
'Our whole goal is to raise awareness for better safety laws and better rules and regulations for not only my children but for other children,' Cooksey said.
Lulu was riding a ride called the King's Crown on May 7 when she fell, causing her hair to become entangled and rip from her head
Last week, the Nebraska Department of Labor issued a statement saying that they had found nothing went wrong mechanically with the ride or evidence that the operator was not paying attention
A crowd gathered at the horrific scene as the little girl lay bleeding and unconscious on the floor of the ride
In the aftermath of the horrific accident, witnesses spoke out to describe Lulu's frightening carnival ride.
According to witnesses, the ride had just started when the girl's red curls were caught in a mechanism, and she began screaming.
'There's nothing we could do and so I stood up and I was like yelling, I was like, "Stop the ride. Stop the freaking ride," said Elizabeth's friend, Aushanay Allen, who took video of her pal just before her horrifying ordeal.
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Share 47 sharesSurveillance video of the park show's the ride's conductor running off to get help, but one mom who was standing nearby says the ride was still moving despite the girl's screams.
'It was still spinning,' Jolene Cisneros told WOWT. 'I had to stop it with my hands and turn it to the point where it was to the platform. I was like, "you're going to be okay" and she's just like, "where's my pretty hair?'''
Cisneros says that Elizabeth was bleeding and then lost consciousness. The horrified mom said she thought the little girl might die right in front of her.
'It went on for 5-10 minutes everybody told me while it ripped and pulled my daughter around,' Gilreath said. 'She was tortured.'
Doctors at first thought that Lulu may never be able to see again, but she is already seeing out of one of her eyes; the other remains swollen shut however
Courtesy WOWT
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