Sunday, 13 March 2016

Weekly News Update 19

My story this week comes from the Daily Mail and the story reflects 20 years on from the Dunblane Massacre. One of the 12 survivors Aimee Adam spoke on Good Morning Britain this week for the first time publically since the devastating attack 20 years ago when Thomas Hamilton went on a shooting rampage at Dunblame Primary School. Aimee Adam was shot twice, once in the right buttock and once in the right thigh before her PE teacher Eileen Harrild told her to crawl into the gym cupboard, and it was there that the then 5 year old school girl blacked out. Aimee had surgery to remove the bullet from her thigh but it was then that surgeons found another bullet which had entered near her groin and wedged into the bottom of her back.
Aimee Adam with Susanna Reid

Miss Adam was visibly upset when talking about the attack and presenter Susanna Reid comforted her as she spoke about the terrifying ordeal. When asked by Piers Morgan how she felt about Thomas Hamilton, Aimee replied saying 'I feel bad for him, that his life was so terrible that he had to ruin other people’s lives. I hate him but he’s gone and he can’t ruin anybody else’s life’. She then went on to say ‘I just can’t let something like that beat me because if I did I wouldn’t be the person I am. It sort of made me who I am’.
To this day, this event remains the deadliest firearms atrocity in the UK, as in the space of three minutes, Hamilton shot dead 16 Primary One pupils and their teacher, Gwen Mayor, before turning the gun on himself.

I found this story particularly interesting because it has taken this young woman 20 years to be able to talk about the event that left her paralysed in the right leg from the knee down which has haunted her for her entire life. She has great courage and bravery and the fact she wants to further her career in Mental Health nurse caring shows that she isn’t going to let this devastating event ruin her life or her future.

1 comment:

  1. I found your article particularly interesting as I have come across it before. You clearly stated your opinion and visual examples as well as the content of the story. You could have also included how the media or the source of this article influences the story and to what relevance is it to them. Otherwise well done a very well analysed article.

    ReplyDelete