The mother of one of the survivors of the gun massacre in Norway today described realising her daughter had “death panic”.
Marianne Bremnes had been sending text messages to her 16-year-old daughter Julie, trying to reassure her as Anders Behring Breivik went on the rampage.
But when she received an SMS saying, “I love you even if we quarrel from time to time”, she knew her child feared for her life.
Mrs Bremnes told Sky News: “She (Julie) knows five of those who died. No 16-year-old girl should deal with this.
“This is a tragedy that we have to deal with for the rest of our lives, both Julie and the rest of her family.
“We didn’t know at the beginning how serious this was, so it took some time for me to realise that this was for real, that they fought for their lives.”
Julie Bremnes, who had been attending the Labour party youth camp on the island of Utoya, managed to hide among rocks on the wooded island.
Her messages show the fear and helplessness the teenagers were feeling as Breivik went on his shooting spree.
Mrs Bremnes described how the mood changed after one text: “Especially after I got the message, ‘Mum and Dad I love you, even though we quarrel sometimes’.
“At that moment I realised that she had death panic.
“My main task then was to keep her calm and keep her where she was hiding. But she realised that herself so they did very well.”
The mother tried to keep her daughter calm as she watched events unfold on the news, but the teenager knew how serious the situation was.
“I told her that nobody was dead,” said Mrs Bremnes, “but she was standing there and watching dead bodies in the water, so she knew that this was a big tragedy.
“When they came back on the mainland and they saw the bags with the dead people, then they really realised that this was a huge tragedy.”
PA