A 10-year-old acted like a human shield to protect a younger schoolmate. An eighth-grade pupil prayed while hiding under a pew. A frightened 11-year-old asked her father to lock the doors and draw the curtains when she arrived home.
These were just a handful of stories of courage and fear that have emerged after Wednesday’s shooting at a Minneapolis church during a Mass for Catholic schoolchildren.
One of the students at Annunciation Catholic School during the deadly morning attack took a shotgun blast to his back after putting his body in the line of fire trying to protect another child, county health officials said.
“There’s a lot of maybe unrecognised heroes in this event, along with the children that were protecting other children,” said Martin Scheerer, a director at Hennepin Emergency Medical Services. “The teachers were getting shot at. They were protecting the kids.”
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The attacker killed two children who have been identified by their parents as Harper Moyski (10) and Fletcher Merkel (8). City officials have increased to 15 the number of injured children, aged six to 15. Three parishioners in their 80s were also injured. One person – a child – was in critical condition.
Family members described one of the victims, Fletcher Merkel, as a boy who loved his family, fishing, cooking and any sport he was allowed to play.
“We will never be allowed to hold him, talk to him, play with him and watch him grow into the wonderful young man he was on the path to becoming,” his father, Jesse, said while tearfully reading a statement outside the church.
The parents of the other victim, Harper Moyski, said in a statement that she was a bright and joyful child.
“Our hearts are broken not only as parents, but also for Harper’s sister, who adored her big sister and is grieving an unimaginable loss,” Michael Moyski and Jackie Flavin said.
“As a family, we are shattered, and words cannot capture the depth of our pain.”
They said they hoped her memory would help drive leaders “to take meaningful steps to address gun violence and the mental health crisis in this country”.
The Hennepin County Medical Examiner’s office said they both died of gunshot wounds.
Chloe Francoual (11) was among the students who were terrified and traumatised by the flying bullets and shattered glass.
“She thought she was going to die with her friends,” her father, Vincent Francoual, said.
After father and daughter were reunited in the school gym after the attack, the pair burst into tears, he said. Later Chloe wanted all the doors in the house locked and the curtains drawn, and implored her father not to walk the dog for fear of dangers outside.
“She’s just a little girl,” her father said. “She’s feeling all this guilt that she is okay, but her friends aren’t.”
Young survivors and witnesses of such violence often experience a range of symptoms in the first few weeks after the event, according to Dr Gail Saltz, a clinical associate professor of psychiatry at the New York-Presbyterian Hospital and Weill Cornell Medical College.
As part of an “acute stress reaction” they may have separation anxiety, trouble sleeping or experience a temporary regression of developmental steps such as a return to bed-wetting, Saltz said.
The attacker, identified as Robin Westman (23) shared a suicide note in a video posted to YouTube that described struggles with anger and depression and a belief that death was near because of a vaping habit.
The attacker also made reference to other deadly US school shootings.
