Thailand survivor’s mum says she fainted when she saw nursery horror as son stabbed in the head and shot twice | World News
At Udon Thani Hospital, we witnessed a procession of unbearable grief.
We were standing on the side of a narrow road when a convoy approached. Inside, are the bodies of those who died after the worst mass shooting in the country Thailandhistory of.
A refrigerated truck pulled up and the coffin after the coffin surfaced. Medical staff standing on the street frantically tried to queue up to carry the coffin to the hospital door.
Many are brightly colored, some are decorated with decorative materials. The line looks endless. It looks like an assembly line.
I stood there wondering how their little days began, what they had for breakfast, what they played with, who they played with, how they said goodbye.
What confusion and horror must have filled their eyes when they saw the attacker enter their safe space, a place considered a haven for fun and learning.
The details are sick. A lot of people died while they were taking a nap. Some teachers described begging the gunman for mercy.
One person was apparently killed as she held a child in her arms. An official told me that very few people survived.
But at Nong Bua Lamphu Hospital, we found some hope.
Sitting outside the ICU, I met Joy, my son Sumaee, who had just had two bullets removed from his head by two skilled neurosurgeons.
Joy told me he was stabbed in the head and then shot twice.
His mother arrived at school when she heard the terrible news. She described in detail the organs seeing bodies and blood everywhere.
“I fainted,” she said. But then, her husband discovered Sumaee being loaded into an ambulance by the rescue team.
Joy said she tried to focus all her energy to reassure him. “I was holding his legs and feet in the ambulance and trying to tell him to be strong.”
She cried as she showed me their pictures and videos over the years.
What incomprehensible violence he witnessed. And what was completely depraved that his mother had now seen up close.
Her grief was compounded by the last exchange she had with him, which she kept repeating over and over in her mind.
He begged her not to go to school. “But I forced him,” she said.
They are conversations that so many of us have had at some stage with our children. Her sense of regret was numbing upon hearing that.
She, like every other parent and every other child that day, had every reason to think they were safe.