NONTHABURI: Fourteen-year-old Khim and her classmates pushed desks against their classroom door and switched off the lights as a suspected gunman moved through Debsirin Nonthaburi School, while her older sister hid in a neighbouring building.
The students had initially leaned over a balcony after hearing the first loud noise on the morning of Friday (August 7), believing it might have come from nearby construction work. When several more bangs followed, a teacher hurried them back into their classroom, checked a messaging group and told them that an armed attacker was inside the school.
Khim, an eighth-grade student who asked to be identified only by her nickname, recounted the experience to Reuters the following day. She said the students barricaded the entrance, turned off the lights and stayed together in silence as they waited for further instructions.
The attack lasted about 40 minutes. Nine people, including the suspected attacker, died and 23 others were injured. Police said the violence began earlier at the teenager’s grandparents’ home before he travelled to the school and began the attack shortly before 10am. The death toll rose on Saturday after a 12-year-old girl died.
Sheltering in Building 5, Khim followed updates through messages on her tablet. Her older sister contacted her to say she was hiding in a classroom in neighbouring Building 4, just as their mother sent a warning about the danger on the campus.
Khim replied that she already knew what was happening and wrote: “Mum, don’t call me, because the ringtone might go off.”
Student chat groups began sharing images of the suspected attacker moving through the school, which had more than 3,000 students and nearly 150 teachers in the previous academic year.
Khim said the danger suddenly felt much closer when she heard an exceptionally loud bang and learnt that the suspected attacker was only a few rooms away. She did not know whether particular people were being targeted or whether everyone in the school was at risk.
A teacher later instructed the class to prepare to leave after police secured parts of the campus. By then, however, the attacker had moved towards Building 4, where Khim’s sister remained in hiding.
Their mother, Kwan, a 52-year-old nurse who also asked to be identified by a nickname, was working at a public hospital when her elder daughter called in panic to report the shooting.
Trying to remain calm, Kwan asked her daughter to keep track of the sounds as she attempted to assess the situation. She then used a second telephone to contact the emergency services while remaining connected to her daughter.
An emergency operator told her that police, including a specialist unit, had reached the school. Kwan relayed information from her daughter indicating that the suspected attacker was moving through classrooms on the second floor of Building 4.
The call then ended without warning.
Kwan said she could do little except pray until her daughter called back several minutes later to tell her that she was unharmed.
The family were reunited several hours later at their home on the outskirts of Bangkok, not far from the school.
Khim said she and her older sister frequently argued under normal circumstances, but seeing her again after the ordeal changed how she felt.
“I’ve never loved her this much before,” she said. - The Nation/ANN
