As 10-year-old daughter Chanel looks on, Tina Rubio talks about injured 9-year-old daughter Robyn, who was trapped beneath a Cadillac until homeless people lifted it off of her. Photo by Gary Thompson.
The unlikely saga of Robyn Rubio -- the little girl whose life was saved Saturday when beer-guzzling homeless men lifted a 5,000 pound Cadillac off her crushed body -- grew more unusual Wednesday as her 30-year-old mother tried to explain why she had not gone to the hospital to see her daughter.
"I wasn't put on the visiting list for ICU (the intensive care unit) at first," Tina Rubio said, chain-smoking as she sat shivering on the patio of a small North Vegas apartment.
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Why not?
"I don't know," the mother said.
Tina Rubio's parents have legal custody of 9-year-old Robyn, who was struck by a car near Lake Mead and Las Vegas boulevards Saturday when she darted into the path of a Cadillac being driven near her apartment complex.
She remains in serious condition at University Medical Center.
The girl's grandparents were unavailable for comment Wednesday and told UMC authorities that they did not want to talk with the media or have their recuperating granddaughter interviewed.
"After a couple of days, I could have seen my daughter, but me and my family thought I wouldn't like to see my daughter like that," Tina Rubio said. "Her father has been with her all the time. But now I'm going to go see her, maybe tonight, because she's asking for me. I'm going to take her a blanket she likes."
Rubio, who said she cannot sleep because she can envision "my baby" being crushed, said her daughter is recuperating from a crushed pelvis, two broken arms, a broken leg and other injuries.
"I learn a little more about her injuries from people each day," she said. "I wish I knew more."
She is thankful to the homeless men who saved her daughter.
One of the men who saved her daughter, Stanford Washburn, who said he abandoned his own daughters when they were 8 and 9, stressed that he worked hard to save Robyn because he was reminded of his own daughters.
"I hate to think what would have happened if those men weren't there," Robyn's mother said. "I don't think anyone else would have helped. That's just the kind of place this is. Most people don't help other people."
Tina Rubio is angry that a relative took her daughter for the walk that ended in disaster.
"She knew she was supposed to ask first before she took my baby," she said.
Chanel, Robyn's 10-year-old sister, said Wednesday that most children at Martinez Elementary, where the Rubio girls go to school, are worried about her sister.
"Some kids are making fun of her (Chanel), though, laughing that it was her sister that got hit by a car," her mom said.
Chanel said she misses playing with her sister.
"They like to dance to the music on the radio," her mom said.
Chanel showed the couch in the apartment where Robyn usually sleeps.
"What are Robyn's favorite toys?" Chanel was asked.
