‘STAY STRONG’

Alabama Shooting Victim Died in Sister’s Arms After Saving Her Life

Phil Dowdell, 18, was killed during the attack at his sister’s Sweet 16 birthday party.

One of the four young people killed during a mass shooting at a birthday party in Alabama last week died while saving his sister’s life, the sister said. Phil Dowdell, 18, went to collect his sister, Alexis, from her 16th birthday party in Dadeville after hearing someone had brought a gun to the event, the BBC reports. Word went around the attendees about the firearm, with the DJ asking whoever had brought it to leave, but no one did. A while later, the killing began. “All of a sudden you hear gunshots and you just see everybody running towards the door and people falling and screaming,” Alexis told the BBC. She says her big brother pushed her to the ground as the shots rang out, but the two were separated in the ensuing mayhem. She managed to escape the venue but later returned to find her critically injured sibling inside. “The last thing I told him was to stay strong,” Alexis said.