On Dec. 14, 2012, 20-year-old Adam Lanza shot and killed 26 people at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut. Yesterday (Feb. 13), 43-year-old Anthony McRae killed three and injured five others during a mass shooting at Michigan State University.
Following the recent senseless tragedy, a young woman who identified herself as J Matt on TikTok claims to have survived both. “So the reason I’m making this video right now is because it is almost 1 a.m. and I am currently directly across the street from where the shootings at Michigan State occurred,” she began. After pausing to take a deep breath, she shared more of her story: “I am 21 years old and this is the second mass shooting that I have now lived through. Ten years and two months ago, I survived the Sandy Hook shooting, and when I was crouched in the corner, in school, in Newtown, Connecticut, on 12/14/12, I was hunched in the corner with my classmates for so long that I actually got a PTSD fracture in my L4 and L5. In my right lower back.”
A survivor of the Sandy Hook School mass shooting in 2012 is a student at Michigan State University: “I am 21-years-old and this is the second mass shooting I’ve lived through. We can no longer allow this to happen. We can no longer be complacent.” pic.twitter.com/Jcafl57tmZ
— Shannon Watts (@shannonrwatts) February 14, 2023
She continued speaking about what physical ailments she suffers from as a result of the first trauma. “I now have a full-blown PTSD fracture that flares up any time I am in a stressful situation, or anything that occurs that’s aggressive,” she added. Before ending her video, the student noted, “The fact that this is the second mass shooting that I have lived through is incomprehensible.”
In both instances, the shooter was not a student at the schools where the attacks took place.
In a separate social media post, a user pointed out that another possible survivor of a high school shooting may have been present last night: “What does it say about a country when you have footage of scared Michigan State University students in the aftermath of a mass shooting, only to notice one of them is wearing a sweatshirt commemorating the mass shooting they survived at their high school?” In last night’s case, the gunman died of a “self-inflicted gunshot wound,” thus ending the physical threat on campus. The names of the victims have not yet been released.
See related post below.
What does it say about a country when you have footage of scared Michigan State University students in the aftermath of a mass shooting, only to notice one of them is wearing a sweatshirt commemorating the mass shooting they survived at their high school? #MSUShooting pic.twitter.com/wSHb6oDQ0w
— SwedishCar850 🇺🇦🇪🇺 (@SwedishCar850) February 14, 2023