They scrambled for cover as quickly as they could as shots rang out, sheltering behind under whatever they could find to escape the gunman and the gore. One survivor with children feared she might never see them again. Another used her friend’s shawl to staunch the bleeding of a man who’d been shot in the shoulder.
Witnesses of Sweden’s worst mass shooting described horror and panic that gripped an adult education center west of Stockholm as the gunman killed at least 10 people. He also died, although it’s not yet clear how.
Here are witness accounts of the carnage that also seriously wounded at least five people and horrified the Scandinavian nation where gun violence at schools is very rare.
Healthcare student’s “worst hours of my life”
Hellen Werme, 35, thought of her two children, ages two and three, as she heard the gunman pacing outside the classroom where she and five other people hid.
“Those were the worst hours of my life. I did not know if I would get shot there and then, or in ten minutes. You simply waited,” the newspaper Expressen quoted her as saying.
The report said Werme, three classmates and two teachers were about to start a lesson on how to install catheters on patients when they heard the first shots Tuesday at the Campus Risbergska adult training school in Orebro, about 200 kilometers (125 miles) west of Stockholm.
“We thought it was a door slamming. Like, ‘oh, sounds like someone is angry,’” Werme was quoted as saying. “Then my teacher shouted, ‘Lock the doors and get down on the floor.’”
They crawled behind some hospital beds and lay there, making no noise.
A woman’s pleas, followed by a shot
Mirna Essa, who studies Swedish at the school, described a bone-chilling moment to the Dagens Nyheter newspaper.
“We hear a woman saying, ‘No, no, no,’ three times. After that we heard someone shooting,” it quoted her as saying. ““I did not know what was happening, I simply ran. It was chaos within a few seconds. It was like a movie. All you can think of is, ‘Why?’”
Essa was among adult students at the school, which offers Swedish-language classes for immigrants and vocational training for people with intellectual disabilities.
“I don’t want to go back. Not now,” she told the newspaper as she returned Wednesday to light a candle for the victims. “All I can think of are those who died, I cannot think of anything else.”
Student describes victims bleeding
Broadcaster TV4 interviewed a student who said she performed first aid on a man who was shot in the shoulder. TV4 identified her only by her first name, Marwa.
“He was bleeding a lot. When I looked behind me I saw three people on the floor bleeding. Everyone was shocked. They said, ‘Go out! Get out!’” she said.
“Me and my friend tried to save the life of this person. People were very shocked. The police were not on site and neither was the ambulance. So we had to help. I took my friend’s shawl and tied it tightly around his shoulder so that he wouldn’t bleed so much.”
Teacher heard bangs and evacuated
Teacher Mattias Jansson said that training he’s received for dealing with emergencies kicked in when he heard shouts for people for evacuate.
“When we made it to the emergency exit we heard the bangs,” he told the Dagens Nyheter newspaper. “These are things that we have been taught, gathering and evacuating, try to get as many people out as possible.”
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AP correspondent Mimmi Montgomery in London contributed.
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