Family: Soldier Narrowly Escaped Injury

A North Texas woman who was getting ready for another tour in the Middle East was right in the middle of the massacre at the Fort Hood.

The family of Capt. Melissa Kale said they knew she was in the Soldier Readiness Center Thursday afternoon preparing to be deployed to Afghanistan.

She had been exchanging text messages with one of her sisters, Ursurla Mayorga, when the texts suddenly stopped.

“She didn’t respond so I thought she was busy,” Mayorga said.

Mayorga and Capt. Kales other family members panicked after hearing the news about the shootings. They spent the day in front of the television waiting for updates from the post.

Mayorga said she didn’t calm down until she heard from her sister three hours later.

“She called me. She said, ‘It’s me. I’m OK. I can’t talk,’” Mayorga said.

Capt. Kale was fine but the people around her were not.

“The guy next to her was shot and wounded. The guy on the other side was shot and killed. She didn’t know how she made it out alive,” said her mother Jennifer Kale.

Lisa Snow said her sister heard everything from the gun firing to the gunman reloading. The military is now interviewing her about what happened.

The family said sitting at their Lavon, Texas home has been hard. But Capt. Kale told them not to drive to Fort Hood.

Capt. Kale is a crisis counselor for the Army. Her family said helping others is why she joined. They don’t believe this latest crisis will keep her away.