- A psychologist said children who survived Tuesday’s mass shooting had their sense of security “especially.”
- Horrifying first-hand accounts of children in the besieged classroom have begun to appear.
- One boy said he was hiding with his friends under a table while another girl was dying.
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Young children who survive school shootings experience a “fundamental shock” of their sense of security and often have long non-linear healing journeys ahead of them, a child trauma psychologist told Insider.
On Tuesday, an 18-year-old gunman opened fire at Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, Texas, killing 21 people, including 19 children and two teachers, all in the same classroom.
First-hand accounts of the tragedy and its aftermath have begun to emerge, including stories of terrified parents urging police to storm the building during the shooting and agonizing descriptions of the weeping sobs of families on learning that their children did not they survived.
But it is the details of the survivors themselves – 10- and 11-year-old students who witnessed the gunman’s massacre – that highlight the vivid horrors of Tuesday’s tragedy.
“It’s time to die”
A fourth-grader who survived the shooting told KENS 5 of the heartbreaking moments he and his classmates first noticed were under attack. After firing at an adjoining door, the shooter entered the boy’s classroom, he said.
“He came in and crouched down a bit and said,‘ It’s time to die, ’” the fourth-grader said on the network.
Hearing the shots, the boy said he immediately went into hiding and told his friend to do the same. He and four other students hid under a table with a tablecloth, out of sight of the shooter.
“He was hiding hard from me,” the boy said. “And I told my friend not to talk because he would listen to us.”
In one of the most terrifying stories inside the classroom, the boy said the shooting continued even after law enforcement came to his aid.
“When the cops came, the cop said, ‘Call me if you need help!’ And one of the people in my class said “Help.” The boy heard and came in and shot him, ”the boy said. “The cop came into the classroom. The guy shot the cop. And the cops started firing.”
When the shooting finally stopped, “I just pulled my hand out,” he said. “I went out with my friend. I knew he was a cop. I saw the armor and the shield.”
The fourth-grader told the network that her family’s hugs and talking about her experiences with a counselor have helped since. Seeing his friend who survived also provided a moment of rest.
Erum Nadeem, a professor of psychology at Rutgers University and a trained clinical psychologist, told Insider that maintaining a sense of community support and allowing children to discuss and digest the incident in appropriate ways for development is a key component for healing.
“Think about that fundamental noise of your sense of security,” he said. “It’s very creepy for everyone.”
“He’s coming for us”
Miguel Cerrillo told The Washington Post that he saw his 11-year-old daughter Miah get on a school bus shortly after the shooting. The girl was covered in blood.
Through the bus window, she began to describe what she had just experienced in the besieged classroom: Miah said she stretched out on the body of one of her classmates to make the gunman believe that they were both dead. Her classmate was initially breathing, but when the shooting disappeared, the girl had stopped breathing.
“Miah took blood and put it on so she could pretend she was dead,” her aunt told NBCDFW.
Children who were able to take proactive steps to protect themselves, hiding under a table or pretending to be dead, were basically acting in a “fight or flight” mode, Nadeem said.
“Basically, they perceived the threat, they assessed the situation, then our brain goes into the fight, flight, or freeze response,” he told Insider. While shooting exercises or pre-school preparation may have played a role in her quick thinking, Nadeem said she’s not sure what part of that previous workout was really present in their minds in this one. moment.
Miah’s father told the network that his daughter said he also grabbed a cell phone from the hands of his teacher, who had just been shot dead, and tried to call 911.
The young woman was left with bullet fragments all over her body. On Tuesday night, he told his father to get his gun, because “he will come looking for us,” Miguel recalled his daughter said, according to The Post.
Nadeem said a prolonged feeling of hypervigilance and “feeling you need to be vigilant, on the sidelines” is common among trauma survivors. The brain stores traumatic memories in a visceral way that can lead to responses such as constant fear, avoidance, and an inability to concentrate.
Children pray and pay their respects at a memorial service for the victims of this week’s shooting at Uvalde, Texas Elementary School, Thursday, May 26, 2022. AP Photo / Dario Lopez-Mills
“As if I had a heart attack”
Erika Escamilla’s niece was in the classroom at a doorway beyond the shooting, she told The Post. When the girl left school after the shooting, she saw inside the classroom where 19 of her classmates were killed.
“She’s traumatized. She said she felt like she was having a heart attack,” Escamilla told the network. “He saw blood everywhere.”
Uvalde Hillcrest Memorial Funeral Home was transformed into a meeting place for survivors after the attack, The Post reported. Teachers and students could be seen coming out alive swaying and grabbing their ears as they screamed, Escamilla said. Others seemed to be in shock, staring silently.
Marcela Cabralez, a pastor who was called to pray with survivors, told the newspaper that her 9-year-old granddaughter was having lunch when the shooting began and is now afraid of sudden attacks; his grandson hid in a bathroom.
“They don’t feel safe anymore,” Cabralez said.
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