'I played dead': Kid who survived Texas school shooting recalls gunman saying 'you're all gonna die'

[Rhiannon12866]

There was blood in the hallway and children were covered in it, one of the students who survived the mass shooting at Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, Texas, told ABC News.

"[The shooter] came in and said, 'You're all gonna die,' and just started shooting," Samuel Salinas, 10, recalled in an interview airing Friday on "Good Morning America." - ABC7 05/28/2022.

More: https://abc7.com/texas-school-shooting-survivor-played-dead-uvalde-tx-student/11900363/

[spike jones]

1. The Uvalde Police Department FB is still open for comments. n/t

[Rhiannon12866]

2. I can't imagine...

[Runningdawg]

3. America today...

Many kids who followed orders they were given in shooter drills died. The little girl who took a cue from The Walking Dead, covered herself in blood and played dead to escape the monsters, survives. #Idiocracy

[Warpy]

4. I hope the survivors are encpiraged to keep talking it out

and that enough people tell them that having survived doesn't make them cowards. It just makes them survivors and there is nothing wrong with surviving except being really sad about losing your friends who didn't.

One of THE RULES back in the 50s and early 60s is that no matter what terrible thing happened to a child, that child was never allowed to alk about it. If they didn't talk about it, they'd just forget it.

It was one thing that predicted the 60s. When we got away from our parents, that was the first rule we ditched. Then we broke all the other ones, whether systematically or all at once.

I might not have been such a wretched mess in my late teens and early 20s if I had been allowed to talk things out. I strongly suspect THE RILE was to save our parents having to be uncomfortable, not admitting they were the grown ups who should have been able to cope with hearing how we felt about it.

[Rhiannon12866]

5. When I got out of college, I was pretty confused and lost. I had no idea what to do next.

I was also a psych major, had worked with "patients" (under the supervision of a psychologist/professor) and thought of going for counseling myself. But my Dad was horrified at the idea, said it would mark me for life, said I should just get a job instead. So you're right, this was the belief of the '50s and '60s, my Dad was afraid for me and thought the best thing was just to get busy and move on.

[Warpy]

6. Yeah, like that was EVER going to work.

The last time I got the "don't talk about it and you'll forget all about it" I was 16 and someone I loved had been murdered (I so didn't grow up in Leave it to Beaver Land).

The wonder wasn't that I was a wretched mess, the wonder is that I made it out alive. A lot of my friends didn't.

Our parents never did get it. They voted for Nixon and Reagan, thinking authoritarians would straighten us out.

I hope you found good people to talk to. I did, lots of supportive friends along the way, including someone who survived the Stanleyville Massacre when she was a kid. She knew some of the crazy stuff I talked about could and did happen to kids. It helped and I hope I helped her, too.

[Rhiannon12866]

7. Oh, I am so sorry.

I was never in danger, just lost and confused. I did go back to work, the same job I really enjoyed at the amusement park where I'd worked summers. And then I continued working in the shops attached to the park. And I spent the rest of the year helping out at a nearby school for disabled children which I really loved, thought of going to graduate school for special ed. But when that was over, I went to the employment office since I qualified foe unemployment - but instead they sent me on a job interview and they hired me on the spot. So I spent the next couple of decades working there, liked the hours since it was later in the day. I had 3 different jobs there, the last and longest was writing the descriptions for the TV networks for the newspaper TV listings. My beat was CBS and FOX (""The Simpsons," not FOX "News'), though I covered for all of them at one time or another. I dealt with the publicists including Dan Rather's publicist, while he was still there. I liked the job, though it was a deadline business and I didn't have time for much else. And I also made friends there, both coworkers who I'm still in touch with (2 are also on DU) and those I got to know over the phone.