Dunblane survivor: ‘I haven’t let it ruin my life’
IT is nearly 20 years on from the horrors of the Dunblane massacre.
But one survivor yesterday told how, even now, the sound of fireworks, or of a balloon bursting or champagne cork popping, startles her and leaves her in tears.
Trainee nurse Aimie Adam, 25, was only five years old when gunman Thomas Hamilton burst into Dunblane Primary gym and killed 16 children and a teacher on March 13, 1996.
She was among the most seriously wounded of the 12 pupils who survived, crawling into a gym cupboard after she was shot twice – once in the right buttock, while the other bullet shattered her right thigh, entering at the top of her hip and lodging at the base of her spine.
Breaking her silence ahead of the 20th anniversary of the attack, she said: ‘I haven’t let him ruin my life.’
Primary one pupils had just started a PE lesson when former Scout leader Hamilton walked in and opened fire.
Miss Adam, who now lives in Aberdeen, said: ‘I don’t remember feeling any pain. There was a weird metallic taste in my mouth and a fuzzy tingly feeling all over my body and I knew everything was not right in my leg.’
She said she escaped further injury when PE teacher, Eileen Harrild – who was shot in the arms and chest – told her to haul herself into a sideroom.
She added: ‘I was on the floor and Mrs Harrild was on the ground beside me and she realised I had been injured. She told me to crawl into the gym cupboard. I don’t remember but I must have made i t. Nursery teachers were running in and shouting for paper towels, then I must have lost consciousness.’
Another injured teacher, Mary Blake, managed to gather a small number of pupils in the cupboard, but others were killed as Hamilton continued his fourminute killing spree – with legal weapons – only ending when he turned the gun on himself.
Miss Adam is one of the first survivors to speak about what happened on that day.
She added: ‘Everyone was chatting and laughing and I was running around – and then I’m not sure what happened.
‘You’d think you’d remember something so dramatic but I can’t. It’s probably a good thing.
‘I can’t remember even if I saw Hamilton’s face. I can’t remember him walking into the room, I can’t remember anything about him. I wasn’t aware he’d shot himself. I had no idea what was going on.
‘You’re five years old – you’re not supposed to be exposed to that sort of stuff.’
Miss Adam was flown to the Royal Hospital for Sick Children in Glasgow where she stayed for three weeks, including a spell in
‘I still live with the devastation’
intensive care, before going home in a wheelchair.
After a year’s home tutoring, she returned to Dunblane Primary in the wheelchair.
The gym had been demolished but lifts and a chairlift installed.
She said: ‘I wanted to be as normal as possible but it was difficult because I had an assistant.
‘I was different from the other kids. I couldn’t do PE, play rounders or go rollerblading.’
At 12, she moved to Aberdeen and children who did not initially know her history, teased her about her injury.
She said: ‘I got called “peg leg” and the rumour was I had a wooden leg. I thought my life was over. At first, they didn’t know I was a Dunblane survivor.
‘The nicknames were difficult to listen to. In Dunblane nobody said those sorts of things.’
The only outward sign of what she has been through is a slight limp.
She added: ‘The only thing that gets me tearful is bottles of champagne or prosecco popping. Balloons bursting and fireworks are a big fear and party poppers as well. I really don’t like those.
‘I get scared, have a little cry and then I sort myself out.
‘It is 20 years and I am still living with the devastation of it. Nobody got to choose that day.’